New settings on the AT Pro found me a keeper!

[JimmyCT]

I hunt an old park that is all grown in with trees, shrubs, layers and layers of dead leaves, fallen timber etc. Not much left to be desired in this place BUT once in a rare moment I find a decent coin. Today was that day. The place I concentrated on today is littered with square nails and other tid bits of iron junk. 4 hours of hunting netted me a 1907 IH cent among the nails.
For the record, I am a very slow hunter. Even though the AT Pro has blazing recovery speed, I still hunt very slow in iron. I am talking almost snail slow. Why?

SIDE STORY:

One day I turned on the AT Pro indoors to check out the numerical readouts of coins. placing each coin on the wood floor I noticed the numbers were skewed (and audio) due to iron nails in the wood floor. "Interesting" I thought....in order to get a near perfect reading and near perfect audio, I had to significantly slow down my sweep speed to "hit" the coin and receive the correct audio report & readout. This truly showed me that (despite how fast this machine is in recovery) it doesn't mean crap should someone have a 2-3 second sweep speed for scanning 3 feet in heavy nails. I scan slower then this.Try moving 8 seconds per foot in heavy nails and run low sensitivity. Call me crazy but I have found more coins hiding in the nails with this slow of a sweep speed. My "accidental" coins on the floor prove this to me. Give it a try sometime.

I can't recall who, but someone here on the forum mentioned running zero disc with iron audio off.
I usually run my disc up anywhere from 29-39 and iron audio ON. In any case, my settings for this hunt where:
Pro Zero
Iron audio off
5x8 coil
and 3 bars of sensitivity.
GB @ 91
Scanning very slow - THE key to finding coins mixed in the iron

Another note I would like to point out:
This very spot I hunted today, I have hunted numerous times, as well as many other hunters with many different brand detectors. It would easily fall into the "beaten to death" and "left for dead" category. All other hunters have written an obituary on the location. For me, that means I have the whole place to myself. In any case, for this park, 4 hours and one coin is very good day. There are many times I have hunted this area (for hours) and did not find a thing worth writing about. This place is truly a severe challenge in pulling a keeper out. All part of the hunt right?

Scanning slowly along, I hear all the grunts of nails and then a nice chirpy tone mixed in. Is it a iron nail false? Hmm I slowed down to where the coil was barely moving so I could isolate this higher tone chirp. I keep swing the coil ever so slowly "baby stepping" the coil ever so slow. ( I think back to those coins on the wooden floor and how slow I needed to go...) I then look at the ID for reference and see that the numerical ID rises from high 60's to 71, 72. I am convinced by what I am hearing. A second witness, if you will, I have a good solid numerical ID repeating. I am convinced I have a good target below my coil and cut a plug. Several nails are in the hole...swishing around with my pinpointer I am convinced that there has to be more....(I am only 2 -3 inches deep) the pinpointer ( I have a TRX pinpointer and only the tip detects) finally starts indicating there is another target in the hole. Sure enough, out pops the IH cent. Not a banner find, but for me it is. If you hunted this place as much as I have, you would agree this was a very successful day.

 

[Dancer]

Got to have felt good picking that baby out of there. Pays to try different things.

 

[John-Edmonton]

Good wisdom you discovered. Go slow......always wins. Going too fast will miss some deep targets and you get sloppy if you grid an area. There is absolutely no reason that I can think of why you would use a recovery speed on a detector so fast as to not be able to process the information yourself.

Great find by the way!

 

[JimmyCT]

Dancer,

It felt wonderful plucking that IH cent out of the nails. I feel there is more hiding in the nails, however it is going to take a whole lotta time. The AT Pro is an unlocking key in iron. I have run this machine in the same wide open areas as everything else I have ever owned and find nothing extra. When I am in littered areas with bottle tops, pulltabs, foil etc or "waist deep" in iron the AT Pro plucks out goodies where my other detectors have not. This is where the AT Pro shines. I also like that it is a light machine with the 5x8" coil. This "little" coil is laser precision in trashy environments. I also love this machine for hunting in the woods. It is light to swing on hill sides and getting in and under the brush to places other hunters will not venture.

Thanks John!
I have seen many videos on u-tube on how some quickly sweep through iron and agree with your thoughts. Our brain / ears has to process all the billions pieces information coming through the headphones. I love the fact that the AT Pro is a fast recovery machine AND one can choose to barely move the coil in heavy iron to hear the multitude of signals and their respective tones. Such precision is readily available if one considerably slows down.

 

[ohiochris]

Iron audio is primarily for checking targets. Unless what you are looking for is iron , all the extra noise is more of a distraction and can play a part in missing those coins near iron. That's why the majority leave iron audio off.

Another useful trick for picking good targets out of iron is to turn your sensitivity way down , that lessens the impact surrounding trash has on the better target.

Nice find !

 

[JimmyCT]

OC,
This is exactly why I run with iron audio ON. I am constantly checking as I am scanning along. I actually feel "naked" without it being on lol. With it on, I can tell when I am finding an area with a lot of activity. Also, I feel the high tones are more pronounced and "jump out" when running iron audio on.

As you can see, I was only operating with the first three bars of sensitivity. I noticed when I dropped it anymore then this I was losing tone identity on shallow coins (such as the one I found here). Two bars of sensitivity, did not make it clear what I was scanning over. When I increased one bar, then the above target (even thought it was only a couple of inches deep) the high tone was extremely clear.

Iron audio is primarily for checking targets. Unless what you are looking for is iron , all the extra noise is more of a distraction and can play a part in missing those coins near iron. That's why the majority leave iron audio off.

Another useful trick for picking good targets out of iron is to turn your sensitivity way down , that lessens the impact surrounding trash has on the better target.

Nice find !

 

[Fabio]

I also leave the iron audio on, unless I'm searching for 70+ signals only.
I've tried iron disc at 12 with iron audio on, to search for iron and steel coins that read at 4. I noticed these coins ring at 12-13 and drop to a fixed 4. Eurocents ring a high 70's and drop to a fixed 4 also.
It's just so tough to go after those "gold" targets, there's just so much trash out there......
Mind you, the iron targets are cool to dig up, unless they're rusty nails. Last week I dug up a complete can of meat that must be over 100 years old. It's rusty and punctured, but it's neat because it has a little metal handle on it's side.
I'm thinking it's Austro-Hungarian.
The AT Pro is special, because you can easily adjust it according to your area and/or whatever you might want to hunt in that particular day. Like if the ground is dry and rock solid, I'll just search for the high end targets, while if the ground is soft and wet, then I'll widen the hunt to more metals.
I do hunt over the same fields. I've always found more stuff where I've already hunted. That's the fun part, still going out and finding neat things, over and over again.

 

[DigDeepNow]

Very helpful. Thanks.

I hunt an old park that is all grown in with trees, shrubs, layers and layers of dead leaves, fallen timber etc. Not much left to be desired in this place BUT once in a rare moment I find a decent coin. Today was that day. The place I concentrated on today is littered with square nails and other tid bits of iron junk. 4 hours of hunting netted me a 1907 IH cent among the nails.
For the record, I am a very slow hunter. Even though the AT Pro has blazing recovery speed, I still hunt very slow in iron. I am talking almost snail slow. Why?

SIDE STORY:

One day I turned on the AT Pro indoors to check out the numerical readouts of coins. placing each coin on the wood floor I noticed the numbers were skewed (and audio) due to iron nails in the wood floor. "Interesting" I thought....in order to get a near perfect reading and near perfect audio, I had to significantly slow down my sweep speed to "hit" the coin and receive the correct audio report & readout. This truly showed me that (despite how fast this machine is in recovery) it doesn't mean crap should someone have a 2-3 second sweep speed for scanning 3 feet in heavy nails. I scan slower then this.Try moving 8 seconds per foot in heavy nails and run low sensitivity. Call me crazy but I have found more coins hiding in the nails with this slow of a sweep speed. My "accidental" coins on the floor prove this to me. Give it a try sometime.

I can't recall who, but someone here on the forum mentioned running zero disc with iron audio off.
I usually run my disc up anywhere from 29-39 and iron audio ON. In any case, my settings for this hunt where:
Pro Zero
Iron audio off
5x8 coil
and 3 bars of sensitivity.
GB @ 91
Scanning very slow - THE key to finding coins mixed in the iron

Another note I would like to point out:
This very spot I hunted today, I have hunted numerous times, as well as many other hunters with many different brand detectors. It would easily fall into the "beaten to death" and "left for dead" category. All other hunters have written an obituary on the location. For me, that means I have the whole place to myself. In any case, for this park, 4 hours and one coin is very good day. There are many times I have hunted this area (for hours) and did not find a thing worth writing about. This place is truly a severe challenge in pulling a keeper out. All part of the hunt right?

Scanning slowly along, I hear all the grunts of nails and then a nice chirpy tone mixed in. Is it a iron nail false? Hmm I slowed down to where the coil was barely moving so I could isolate this higher tone chirp. I keep swing the coil ever so slowly "baby stepping" the coil ever so slow. ( I think back to those coins on the wooden floor and how slow I needed to go...) I then look at the ID for reference and see that the numerical ID rises from high 60's to 71, 72. I am convinced by what I am hearing. A second witness, if you will, I have a good solid numerical ID repeating. I am convinced I have a good target below my coil and cut a plug. Several nails are in the hole...swishing around with my pinpointer I am convinced that there has to be more....(I am only 2 -3 inches deep) the pinpointer ( I have a TRX pinpointer and only the tip detects) finally starts indicating there is another target in the hole. Sure enough, out pops the IH cent. Not a banner find, but for me it is. If you hunted this place as much as I have, you would agree this was a very successful day.

 

[fongu]

Congratulations on you finds and I picked several coins out of a junk pile of trash at the river by slowing down. The 5 x 8 makes you slow down more than the stock coil so you can overlap for good coverage.

 

[Strobing_NYC]

Yes its a huge misunderstanding that you need to run your machine at full sensitivity! I hunt iron filled house sites the same way, Sens... own 2 bars from full or even 4 bars down (right in the middle) Pro Zero mode with no iron discrim... and scan super slow and I mean slow "turtle speed" I have pulled more coins, silver and relics like this then I would have if I swung fast over the ground. I first start out cherry picking the high tones with a fast sweep and full sens... then go back over the same ground super slow and I am always amazed at how much more I can find.