Garrett AT Gold Information, Questions, Settings and Tips

axeman said:

Sluice_goose, I buried a 5c piece in my backyard (about 100mm), the yard has had a top dressing of about 30cm+ of fill so I wasn't expecting to find anything except my 5c.
In a meter square area I found 50 odd cents worth of 1c and 2c coins and my 5c coin. Outside that area, nothing so the previous owner must have chucked them out there when he was filling in the yard as they were down around the 100mm mark, strange. Mick

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That puts a new meaning on increased property value.

GRRRRRRRRRRR

I have been tracking the progress of the detector and it arrived in the country on the 26th. I rang Aust Post on the wednesday to see where it was as we were leavig for Sofala on the Thursady morning early and I was hoping it would arrive Wednesday arvo.
The lady said it was awaiting a customs check and would be on its was in a couple of day.
So, off we went to Sofala with all the gear minus a detector.

On the way home last night, i thought I would jump on my phone and check the status of the shipment again and it said that there was a delivery attempt on Thursday morning
Bloody Aust Post have no idea.

Looks like ill be swinging on Monday. I have a few places in mind to learn on coins.

great info

Great Advice HEAVY METAL. Thanks for your posts.

Hi question for AT Gold owners. The detector has a Disc 2 mode which from my understanding is targeted for American coins. What if any benefit, is this mode to us here in Aussie. Is this mode useable in prospecting for eg.

I've found absolutely no benefit in using Disc 2 over the other modes in Australia. The only time I switch to this mode is if the ground is extremely trashy to help eliminate some of the targets, otherwise I stick with Disc 1 or All Metal Mode depending on what and where I'm detecting.

Disc 2 isn't suited for prospecting as it's discrimination pattern knocks out much of the smaller gold. For prospecting you want to use All Metal Mode as much as possible as it provides the deepest depth penetration and sensitivity to smaller targets.

Thanks Nugget, I thought that the case however it begs the question why there isn't an AT Gold International? Or is that Disc 1?

Just curious Nugget while we are on that topic, have you tried you AT Gold prospecting and if so any yellow?

I can't answer the question regarding an International version although it would be nice.

I've only taken the AT Gold prospecting a few times and haven't been lucky enough to swing it over any yellow as yet. Unfortunately the nearby gold fields aren't the richest around but I am confident in finding gold with this machine. It seems to handle highly mineralised ground conditions quite well and is very sensitive to small targets.

Do a search on the forum and you'll see plenty of gold being found with the At Gold (just not mine, yet :lol.

Thanks Nugget, I agree on the small target ability of the Gold, It picks up the smallest bits of everything and surprisingly deep. I was at the beach yesterday and dug out a tiny bit of metal, just rubbish about as big as a match head at about 12" deep ( All metal mode) Only just got it so I'm experimenting just now but I was quite impressed all the same. My old x terra would have missed it.

Hi all I'm new here and wanting my first detector.
I have looked around and seen the AT Gold which is in my price range. Does anyone know if these work good in WA conditions? Or should I be looking at the mine lab xtreme 705 for around the same money? Any help would be great as I want to get started ASAP!!
Cheers Glamo

Have seen this question a fair few times on various forums (Edit: not so much the AT Gold specifically but VLF's in general) & the general consensus seems to be that VLF use in WA is limited to mullock heaps, & the like, to fish around for specimen or small, shallow gold - which is where they come into their own regardless of what state, area used I guess.

Most people tend to recommend a PI (Pulse Induction) detector for dedicated gold searching in WA or for that matter anywhere else. Not saying you won't find gold with a VLF because I have & there is plenty of evidence on this site of them getting gold but now having used an old SD2200D can see why people recommend using the PI machines. It runs much smoother, quieter than my VLF in hot ground & is fairly easy to use/set up in comparison so the newer models must be terrific as people say the old SD's are noisy :lol:. You can pick an SD2000 or 2100 up for anywhere between $800-1400 & SD2200 are usually between $1300 - 1800 depending on what gear they come with.

The GMT can be hard to tame some days & a lot would probably give up on it. I won't get rid of my VLF though as I said above they do come into their own in certain areas & I have my eye on a very junky area for it & my 6"x4" coil shortly . I have heard of a lot of people having both a VLF & PI in their kit especially for those areas with specimen gold & heaps of junk.

Sorry looking back I probably didn't answer your question that well & may have even posed a few more for you but selecting the right detector is a pretty hard thing & depends a lot on what your going to target & where so you need to do heaps of research & make your decision based on what will best suit you & what you plan to do.

I was out today for a hunt at a new spot close to Oallan, not expecting to find any gold but hoping to learn more about my AT Gold and the settings..

All going good until I decided to test it out in water, first stint was good and found some scrape steel ect but after hours I kept getting a constant signal that sounded somewhat faint but show a number (22-40), no matter how much I ground balanced I kept getting the same signals and readings.

On dry land and just doing a air swing it done the same thing?????

Would it be possible my coil has water leaked inside?

It could be waterlogged, effected by EMI or possibly even be a combination of incorrect settings for the environment.

Have you turned the detector on at a different location to see if it's settled down?

Also make sure the threshold is set to "0", having it too high will give a constant buzz.

Let us know how you get on with it.

Did you manage to get it sorted?

Nugget said:

Did you manage to get it sorted?

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Not as yet Nugget, I did put the new NEL Hunter coil on late Sunday to see if any difference, unfortunately haven't had time to get out to see if there is any difference.

On a side note though, first impressions of the NEL coil is that

1) you can noticed the extra weight, going to have to eat more Weet-Bix before I head out

2) in my back yard only, it seems to ground balance to a higher value than the Garrett coil.

Hope to get out this weekend coming to see if I have the same problem as the OP.

Hi guys,

Thought I'd share my quick experience using the AT Gold in the central Victorian gold fields.

I don't mean to sound like a professional at prospecting or using the At Gold but I thought id tell how it runs for me. With the high mineralization around where I prospect I find it quite difficult picking up a good signal amongst the ghost noises and iron stone that's everywhere, along with the amount of foil and led which show up as good targets my typical range of mineralisation is anything between 30 - 65. I prefer to use the all metal mode not only is it recommended for finding gold which is what I'm after I like to have a open range on my ID cursor and go in with an open mind about what ill pick up besides trash left by the old timers or shooters.

Compared to the other Discrimination modes available which are slightly different I have found the iron audio feature is a great asset in the ground I'm prospecting over saves me a load of time digging and have found in the mineralised soil the iron discrimination level I set it at has too be slightly lower to not mask the good targets as trash. I like that the target ID shows not only on the ID cursor but bigger on the digital screen as the number found from the target which helps walking around in the sun and not being to see the screen majority of the time.

Another great thing about the AT Gold is that its rugged and water proof, I recently went out for a quick search and the weather turned to shit and bucketed down but decided to stay a little longer determined too search the last patch on the agenda, not knowing I put it down right in trench full of water after digging the target I found the Garrett sitting nicely under the water and still ran true.

The last thing I like about using the AT gold is the small DD coil which doesn't cover as much ground as id like but works well with separating closely set targets in the ground like bullet casing that are scattered everywhere. I work it around small holes and around trees and ground cover works a treat!

Thanks for giving this a read hope it was worth it! cheers

I love my AT Gold. I have found just under an ounce in 10 months with it and heaps of coins. I find that if I am going to a high mineralised area then I take a little nugget with me and put it down on the noisy ground so I can tune correctly for it. I the AT loves mullock heaps and white clay the best. All my gold has come off old timer's diggings and I am yet to find a bit in virgin ground but the day will come soon.
Good luck mate
Happy Hunting

Im hearing ya Heavymetal great minds think alike

Hi Arwon! I got you PM in my email but I cant view it yet because I hvn't posted enough posts yet haha!