New at Gold owner question

[winterscall]

Hi all,

I just bought a new at gold, and am wondering if I made a mistake. I'm really more of a coin hunter than anything but wanted something a little versatile. I live in Massachusetts and run into a lot of old iron in the ground. My question is whether or not the at gold is a good coin machine. I upgraded from whites coinmaster GT and did pretty well with it. Also, is there a good setting for hunting coins with the gold as I am just getting started with it.

Thanks for any info you have,

John

 

[FrankG]

I own a Pro and not a Gold but I seem to recall that one of the 2 discrimination preset modes on the Gold is set up specifically for coin shooting (I think it's Disc2),

Seems like the Gold should work fine in any situation here in MA except salt water or salted sand beach areas because it's not designed to ground balance well on the low end of the conductivity scale.

Back when I was shopping, I chose the Pro over the Gold mostly because it cost a lot more and lacked manual notch discrimination, Truthfully, I've never used notch discrimination in the 3 years I've had the Pro and I hunt a lot of trash infested areas. That's pretty much because I rely on the audio tones to determine when I choose to dig.

I concluded the the Gold is much more feature laden and overall a better machine (also a little more difficult to master) but the lower priced Pro was more than adequate for my detecting needs.

 

[calabash digger]

If the tones are the same as the pro it will make one sweet sound when it passes over silver . I had the pro and found some killer coins with it im no coin shooter im a relic hunter but if its anything like the pro it will do just fine with coins.

 

[MikeLab]

First off, find a place where the trash thins out a bit. If you go to a trashy area you are going to get ear fatigue. If you just want coins only, set the iron discrimination to 44, lower the sensitivity (even low levels goes deep), run in DISC 2, and only dig the high tones. That's as tight as you can go. Now opposite that is to go to a sand tot lot and set it to All Metal and dig all targets after checking them in Iron Audio. I'd still run the iron discrimination up a ways, at least 25 or more. You will learn a lot in an hour.

Now when you get to where the trash thins out, run in All Metal and when you hear a nice sharp target, take a glance at the target ID number and see if you want to dig. The deep targets show a lower number so figure that in. I do about half my hunting in All Metal. Deeper and clearer, and less missed targets.

 

[MikeLab]

I forgot to add the lowest sensitivity levels in All Metal mode are less sensitive compared to DISC 1 & 2 and because of this the ID numbers are not accurate. I suggest you experiment with this to see what I mean. Now in DISC 1 & 2, the lowest sensitivity still detects at least a few inches. Also since the ground balance is high performance, it's best to balance often like on hillsides or wherever you get to different ground. For me, if I see the ID numbers are off, that is a good sign that i should re-balance. I tell people to buy Clive Clynicks books. He knows All Metal. Well, he knows detecting.

 

[Turak]

I have BOTH the ATPro and ATGold.....Love them both.

But yeah I would say if your primarily a coin hunter, I would have went with the AT Pro.

I think it is also a better choice for hunting in 'trashy' areas such as heavily used parks, etc.

Also better if you want to try and go salt water.

It is less 'chatty' than my ATGold.....which some find nice (I do).

But the ATGold can get an inch or two deeper, using the 'all metal' mode.

The ATGold has some other very nice more 'advanced' features the many users find useful (i.e. all metal mode, ground balancing window, adj. threshold,etc.)

It is also a bit more sensitive to smaller/gold items (due to the slightly higher operating frequency no doubt).

18kHZ for the ATGold and 15kHZ for the ATPro.

Hehe one coin my ATGold picks out better than the ATPro.....Nickels, locks onto them just a wee bit better than the ATPro.

Most likely because of the better midrange sensitivity, again due to the slightly higher operating frequency.

Don't get me wrong...either unit is GREAT. But mostly for coins.......the ATPro.