Garrett ATX Information and Questions

[GOLD Billyen]

I wonder if your screams interfere with the VLF signal when you look down and see 5 leaches stuck to you? That would a gold youtube vid.

It's not a vlf

Don't take away from my humor! I made a funny.

we know what you meant VLF= very low fat and yes depending where they would be stuck would determine the signal (scream) that would definitely override the peep peep atx produces lol

Yes...that was the meat of my joke.

 

[packman]

took an ATX out past Southern Cross the other week, still pretty hot but wanted to see what it would do under those exact conditions. Very quiet to the point of thinking if its on or not till you hit a bullet, no enthusiastic sounds from the machine, just an indication that something is there, you have to create your own excitement as to the size or whatever, where-as the Minelab would yell out what it had found. An occasional sound from a hot rock, its not until your magnet contacts the ground that you realise what your missing. I thought I wasn't getting enough responses as it made hard work of picking up a signal from my tester nugget (sub grammer) so I reverted back to the 4500 with a Sadie, the response to the tester nugget was loud and crisp but then the heat and the hot rocks made for hard going. The only true test would have been to put it over a target, but alas, there in lies our dilemma.

 

[Alex G]

Please see article below

 

[Alex G]

Has anyone had an ATX out in the goldfields yet?
All the talk about them seems to have died :/

I have.
Went to Bendigo near Kangaroo Flat today 19/03/2014.Found two small nuggets in under 2 hours.One was 0.2g about 6cm deep in hot soil.Had max sensitivity and worked dead slow,with headphones(started finding gold with headphones and slowest ground track,going slow)
Had guys with GPX 5000 mono coil came for a day.Did some tests,burried some small pieces.Compared both machines.Neck in neck.My mentors were impressed.
Will be ordering 20 inch coil from US now via relative.500$ there, 800+$ here.
After 4 months some minor hardware problems.Most was fixed by myself at no cost.Battery orings were replaced by Garrett under warranty.One swelled up and wouldn't go back in the barrel.Batteries last 1.5+ days full on use ground balancing 100 times a day.Shoulder strap rather basic but better than none.I was the biggest winger about ATX and now starting to like it.Especially after it started finding me gold.
For those who can not afford 5000 I recommend ATX.I recon its a good equivalent to 4500.Compact and 2 min to set it up and off you go.Garrett warranty proved to be there for me.Double D catches on rocks in rocky places and gets easily scratched also gives false signals because of tiny impacts.Try to come up with some plastic cover like a lid of a plastic bucket and than sell patent to Garrett just like putting plastic washer under bottom coil screw so it screws tighter and coil don't flop up/down when ground balance.

Regards,
Alex from Melbourne

 

[rigger572]

Re-Toysnthings post! Could you clarify why you tested the ATX with no threashold i am under the impression that the threashold is important to hear sm
all signals.
I have an ATX and unfortunately have only been down to the vic goldfields twice and for short periods but have picked up eight nuggets from .1 to1.4 grams i find the detector can run at max sensativity most of the time however the settings at times needed to be reduced which brings up another question is there any data on the depth loss on each sensativity setting .
I am impressed with the detectors ability to get small gold ,i would have been more impressed if it handled all ground on max settings but found dropping the settings to 11 quietened it to a good level but am worried about the loss of dete tion depth

 

[HKGTS0]

For those of you thinking of buying a Garrett ATX, here is a comparison done by a very respected user of both the GPX and ATX.
detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/160-garrett-atx-vs-minelab-gpx-5000/

Very informative and unbiased.

Cheers, Trevor

 

[w3bgold]

Steve has also posted some more follow up discussion on the matter over here: http://golddetecting.4umer.net/t18407-garrett-atx-vs-minelab-gpx-5000

 

[Tassie Daz]

Well fellas I was in the Golden Triangle for 10 - 12 days and walked over a hell of a lot of the gold field and did not find a spec. Was I walking over the wrong ground? Was I missing the messages my ATX was sending me, I sure hope so. Otherwise my $3000 outlay to buy the ATX was a waste of time and money. [Wolf, I've still decided to hang onto it and persist, mate.] But I wont know the outcome of those questions for at least another 12 months, or until I get onto some ground that's gold bearing, and in SA, that's hard to find. But we are going to WA hopefully towards the end of the year.

 

[Tassie Daz]

Found lots of small pieces of Lead, and the fellas tell me that if you are finding shot and small lead bullets then gold's not far away. I must have just been walking over the ground that everyone else has been flogging. OR not the gold bearing ground. I only learning, and I don't know nada.

 

[Guest]

What you need to do is get hold of a .5 or 1
gram nugget as A test piece. You can buy a
piece off ebay.

Run this under the coil in different distances
and get used to This sound even at its faintest.
If you need to record this And loop it so you
continuously hear the recording and play
It in your own time and you get used to it.

When you head out take it with you and test
your machine against It.

I think it will get easier once you find your
first piece.

Good luck with it.

 

[joe]

Found lots of small pieces of Lead, and the fellas tell me that if you are finding shot and small lead bullets then gold's not far away. I must have just been walking over the ground that everyone else has been flogging. OR not the gold bearing ground. I only learning, and I don't know nada.

Hi TD, finding heaps of small lead is a sign that the area is not that flogged. It's more of a question - how much gold is in the area to start with and where are you swinging. Are you detecting hills, grazing ground, creek river bed, mullocks, pits, etc.. What sensitivity setting did you use ? I found that @ sensitivity 12 I could pick up bird shoots 2 to 3 inches.

 

[Goldpick]

Did you have much trouble with hot rocks with the ATX, depending on where you were detecting of course?

 

[HKGTS0]

I received my Garrett ATX Deepseeker package in early March and have just had my first trial with it using the DD coil. The first thing was setting it for operations, and this was easily achieved and in a very short amount of time. I must state that the last time I used a metal detector was back in the late 1970s or early 80s, when I had a Whites unit, the model's name of which now escapes me, though I do remember it had "ground elimination balancing". I found that I could GB the ATX easily and also the threshold level was able to be set quickly. The sensitivity was able to be set between 10 and 13 (max). The ground I was going over was fairly hot and the ATX was able to be kept in a stable condition without too many hassles. While the ATX did produce "signals" when hitting some objects, this could generally be checked and ascertained as a false signal quickly. The result of the search netted me several small pieces of iron, some foil, and a five cent piece. One of the pieces of iron was about the size of a match head and was buried about 2 inches down.The deepest I had to dig was about 12 inches for a small item of aluminium foil. I am off to some goldfields shortly now that I have a basic understanding of how the machine operates. Time will tell if I have made a good choice.

The first thing I did notice, was just how heavy the unit was with the DD coil in use. I will have to trial the big mono coil next and I am sure this will be even harder on the arms (and back). Incidently, I am using a Minelab harness with the ATX, as the supplied Garrett harness is, I feel, useless.

 

[joe]

I received my Garrett ATX Deepseeker package in early March and have just had my first trial with it using the DD coil. The first thing was setting it for operations, and this was easily achieved and in a very short amount of time. I must state that the last time I used a metal detector was back in the late 1970s or early 80s, when I had a Whites unit, the model's name of which now escapes me, though I do remember it had "ground elimination balancing". I found that I could GB the ATX easily and also the threshold level was able to be set quickly. The sensitivity was able to be set between 10 and 13 (max). The ground I was going over was fairly hot and the ATX was able to be kept in a stable condition without too many hassles. While the ATX did produce "signals" when hitting some objects, this could generally be checked and ascertained as a false signal quickly. The result of the search netted me several small pieces of iron, some foil, and a five cent piece. One of the pieces of iron was about the size of a match head and was buried about 2 inches down.The deepest I had to dig was about 12 inches for a small item of aluminium foil. I am off to some goldfields shortly now that I have a basic understanding of how the machine operates. Time will tell if I have made a good choice.

The first thing I did notice, was just how heavy the unit was with the DD coil in use. I will have to trial the big mono coil next and I am sure this will be even harder on the arms (and back). Incidently, I am using a Minelab harness with the ATX, as the supplied Garrett harness is, I feel, useless.

Good luck in the goldfields HKG

 

[Tassie Daz]

[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ws0YXAJELA[/video]

On the Garrett video channel.

 

[slowflow]

No and thanks.

 

[prospect61]

I am going out to heathcote tomorrow, I will post some vids on how the ATX really goes over junkie ground, I have found some nice relics by digging everything.

 

[prospect61]

I beg to differ on your posts of the ATX Wal, It is very quiet on H/M ground, the gpx4500 was getting all signals from hot rock where as the ATX was smooth and quiet, I can and have ran the ATX at 12, sure you pick up minerals, but still so much more quieter than the gpx running his 10" Mono. As a standard, I run the Sen's at 10, Threshold is at 7/8, it is quiet and gets good depth, I have not made a video as yet, I will now take the phone with me and get some footage for you when I go to Vic fields next.
I am not saying that the ATX is better than anything else, I know the GPX4500 has found gold I have walked over, could be the way I was using it, I am now going very slow and very very low, it has found me some nice relics from 1862 in very junkie areas where other detectorists are bypassing thinking it is all junk, discriminator works great on the ATX, I like the double signal it gives telling me there maybe something of interest down there, I have a few concerns about this ATX, but I am sure I can nut them out in time, (weight, Battery & speaker), the 20" Mono is way too big for the Vic fields, I wish they thought of that and supplied a 10 to 12" Mono for the scrubby area's.
Please don't just hire one for a day and then knock it, we know you are a minelab user, go out a few times with somebody who owns one, work side by side in the same field, you yourself may just get a big surprise.

Cheers Wal
Len

 

[WalnLiz]

G'day Len,

Firstly let me just say that I'm definitely "Not" an ATX knocker, and have always professed it to be a great machine for the money. I have also been out with ATX users, (including Joe) and also a friend and fellow PA member who received the first ATX in NSW.....Which is actually the basis of the testing we have done.

We have run the machines side by side on many occasions including over buried nuggets on the same fields. The ATX is as I have on many occasions stated, a very capable machine.

That fact that I have commented on some of it's downfalls is by no way an attempt to downgrade the machine, as I have also a lot of respect for Garrett Australia who happens to be a very good sponsor of this forum.

My own personal observations based on intensive tests, does not have the ATX comparable with the GPX 5000, and if it was I would be the first in line to replace my 5000 with one. I'm in the game of unearthing as many nuggets as i can and travel the length and breadth of the country to do so, and as such want the best technology on my side.

Where I get annoyed is when you go on to You Tube and listen to guys in the States like "Bearcat" who put the ATX above the GPX based only on the fact that they're a local machine. They do the most ridiculous comparison tests to get their own biased results.

I hope you do extremely well with your ATX and I'm confident that the money you spent was well worth it and the machine will serve your purposes well.

Cheers Wal.

 

[Tassie Daz]

Hi Fellas,
Wolf, I have my 1.9g nugget now and am set for when I finally get back to the GF's.
Goldpick, I was amazed how the ATX starts out noisy when you first start it up but with pumping it, it quietens down and runs quiet. When we were over in the triangle, I had trouble with the ironized clay but the ATX was ok when I understood what to do to change that. And I didn't foind anything while I was there but I think that is more about my technique, than it is about the Atx itself.