New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Hey Gav,

I have had mine over a year now and been out with it a fair amount of times, it's seems to be really diverse for both gold hunting and relic hunting. It's quite a complex beast, many settings and this is where the most challenge has been. It can be used in most situations using auto-ground balance, but when in Wet sand or highly mineralised situations, you really need to have RTFM'd. It took me ages to get the hang of it, but then I am a relative newbie, so thats understandable.

Last time I was in Canvastown I tested the AT against x-terra steve's detector (Gold bug I think...) and they seemed to be on a parr. The AT was able to detect nuggets up to the same size as Steves, about 2-3cm/square kind of size if I recall correctly was the smallest we could get a decent signal.

The best thing about the AT I have found is you can set the iron descrim easily (Heavy mineralised sites or balck sand or wet sand etc...). Also can use the 3 pres set settings that seem to be good for most areas. I haven't found that much with it (about 6-7 nuggies), but thats cause I haven't been out that much. I plan to remedy that this year over the xmas break :)

It,s great underwater, I have found a few small nuggies while submerged, but be aware you have to make sure that all the connections are water tight before diving in... (da you might say) but the O-rings need to be checked all the time, they seem to move around or get squashed easily....

Hope this helps... as I said I will be around the south island, mainly the Tasman area I think, this Nov/Dec so if you want to see one in action or have a go with it, let me know.

Cheers
NH

Edited by user Friday, 5 October 2012 3:34:22 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Your totally right Gav, the AT Gold breaks down to next to nothing... all you need is a phillips screw driver and it can fit in a very small space :) Seems to be really good on the battery usage too man, 4x AA batteries and I have not had to change them for 1 year... Like I say not heaps of usage, maybe twice a month for a whole day... pretty good really.

Have you seen these vid's?

http://www.youtube.com/w...o5Hw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7bI4uUacRg

Also:
What is operating frequency of Metal Detectors?

Frequency in a metal detector is referred to in kHz. (kilo hertz). It is the number of times the signal is transmitted and received by the detector every second. For example a metal detector operating at 6 kHz will transmit and received 6,000 times per second, and at 50 kHz 50,000 times per second.

As a rule, lower frequency detectors offer better sensitivity to copper and silver and better overall detection depth and trash rejection. Most general purpose models operate at lower frequencies.

Higher frequency detectors are more sensitive to small metals and natural gold. However, they have difficulties with discrimination against nonferrous (not-of-iron) metals. Their sensitivity to small metals makes them tedious to use around trashy areas. Most gold prospecting detectors operate at higher frequencies.

This extract is from this site: http://whiteselectronics.com/info/faqs.html

Cheers
NH

AT Gold for finding gold = buy the sniper coil the standard 8x5 coil is just to big for getting into tight spots between rocks (even with its blunt nose) this was very apparent to me when watching others with the Gold Bugs and their small coils.

For park hunting the standard coil is great for trashy areas but requires a lot of swinging. With no notch function (you do still have iron discrimination though + the iron audio feature) it's a little hard on the ears. It LOVES $1 & $2 goldies, I've found $700+ and that was in the first few months of having it, unfortunately it has been collecting dust for the last 8 months (with the exception of the last few weeks).

Beach hunting - forget it unless in dry sand

The BIG plus is being waterproof, a shame that the standard headphones aren't and it has a non standard plug for water-tightness so you can't just plug in another set, you can buy an adapter but at the 3.5mm end it still would need to be silicon sealed.