EpsilonMinus
Sr. Member
Hello everyone,
I finally got a detector and got to start my treasure hunting career this afternoon and I thought I would share my experience and observations with the forum.
I found such posts extremely helpful during the last couple weeks since I joined and I can't even tell you how many I have read, hours and hours, every day. I can tell you, however, how much I appreciate them! Hopefully some people out there will read this one and find it helpful.
After reading endless posts on this site and researching the plethora of various detector brand names and models all around the web, I finally found one I felt comfortable with that seemed to be a decent all-around unit at a fair price. I then contacted the most local authorized Garrett dealer I could find (an hour drive away), arranged a meeting, stuffed a few Grants in my pocket, and went.
I know I could have saved a bit of money by ordering online, but I prefer to buy locally from people who are not just trying to make a buck, but who are into the hobby as well. In fact, the dealer I purchased my Ace from had turned part of his house into a little Garrett store, very professional looking, but obviously part of his home. Selling Garrett stuff is what he does when he gets home from WORK, so he can stay connected to the hobby even when he can't go hunting.
Around the area were all sorts of other treasure hunting tools, some very 'broken in' looking, such as his collection of prospecting equipment. Even after agreeing on the sale we talked for a almost two hours about the local area history and all the things he has found, which he then proceeded to show me. He then allowed me to hold different kinds of gold pieces and gold nuggets he panned himself. I also got to see a book that detailed relics found from when Spanish Conquistadors traveled through my area 500 years ago, which really got my hopes up.
I had just enough money to buy the detector I was looking for and I wasn't interested in buying anything else, but he wanted to keep teaching me things about the hobby and put things into my hands so I could then get a more personal understanding of them that goes beyond internet and book research. It was like he was glad about making the sale, but was even more happy to be afforded the opportunity to discuss something that was obviously very important to him.
Then, to top it all off, he mentioned that he is even the vice president of the local treasure hunting and prospecting club and invited me to attend that so I could meet others that are into the hobby and learn more about my new detector and others.
You simply cannot get this type of experience from a phone call to warehouse somewhere. Sure, they might be detectorists, but there is just no way you can get this kind of information and service any other way. Besides, now I have a local go-to guy for the stuff I need, and even local hunter-networking. Try stuffing that into a 'free gifts with purchase' package!
So, this morning, after waking up at the bright and early hour of 2pm, having stayed up too late watching the instructional dvd and reading the manual, I grabbed my new ACE, a gallon of water, my backpack, and headed out...
...to my driveway. Sure, driveways are the most common place to start detecting, but I live in middle of nowhere Texas, so mine is BIG.
I took the manuals advice and started slowly, with the default settings. All metal, no discrimination, sensitivity two bars from full. Then, again as advised, I dug EVERYTHING. No amount of reading can prepare you for that this 'everything' means. It doesn't matter how remote you think you are, there is garbage EVERYWHERE. METAL garbage. After roughly two hours of this I learned quite a lot about not just my new detector, but the environment I was trying to work with.
I found out that, being the South-West, a wimpy trowel has no value as digging tool in many places. Since I was just starting out, and on my own property, I grabbed a full-size shovel and just tried to use it 'gently' when it seemed appropriate (or possible). Also, I carried around a big screwdriver to find out what this 'probing' thing is all about, and although I wasn't able to really do that properly, it was useful as like a top-scraper on the dirt, as almost all the garbage I was finding was right at the surface or less than half and inch deep. Even if the target is on the surface the ACE will tell you 2", meaning ' up to 2" ', so, doing that is really helpful.
The ground is so ridiculously hard, being a rocking desert climate, that it appears very unlikely that anything small and of value will get very far from the surface. That said, the only pull-tab I found was almost a foot deep and only a broken half of one. That says a lot about the ACE, in my opinion. I worked like hell to find that thing because it came up as dime. The ACE doesn't lie, if it beeps, there is SOMETHING there!
After about five hours I had to stop and call it a day. As said before, this is Texas, so working in the sun gets difficult very fast. I have to say though, one of the reasons I was able to go even that long, as a first time detector, was that the unit itself seems to weigh almost nothing. I didn't feel any strain at all in my swing-arm, no discomfort at all. my 'shovel' arm, however, will tell you differently, heh.
Like I said, I went all out with no discrimination for two hours, then I started to ignore the iron/foil targets, as the ACE was right on about those and I was getting anxious to at least find one coin, even a common worthless penny, before giving up for the day. I found out very quickly that digging takes time, filling the hole takes time, walking around swinging takes time, and I wanted to cover as many different ground-areas as I could, just for the education value. I can practice the digging later, as the stuff isn't going anywhere, and I plan to go over this area several times as I figure this machine out. One thing I also noticed, regarding time, is that it passes extremely quickly while doing this. I was out for five hours, but until I checked the time, I thought it was maybe two at most. I imagine the 10+ hour days the 'pros' put in are like nothing. This is fun!
To summarize, when you hear 'you can't learn this unless you spend the time with your machine and do the work', its 100% true. With the ACE, the learning seems to come very quickly, as the controls are extremely simple once you begin to understand what the machine is trying to tell you. Like I said before, it doesn't lie, if it says there is something there, there is.
Just a few more things, then some pics, and I'll close my ridiculously long diatribe.
A few tips for others who are starting out. Some of these came to me after I made some newbie mistakes and others I just thought of while walking around. Don't ask which is which, I'm not telling!
1. Read all the forums and websites about the hobby you have time for. Sites like this one are worth their weight in gold for their insights and shared experiences.
2. Read the manuals and watch the videos that come with your machine. Sounds obvious, but I have noticed that most of the problems that inexperienced people are complaining about everywhere are due to not spending 20 minutes with the instructions, how embarrassing for them!
3. Try to not let the coil ever touch the ground while swinging. Of course you hit grass and plants, but bumping the actual dirt was the source of probably 9/10 of the phantom signals I experienced.
4. When you find a signal you want to dig (with a shovel), put your detector at arms length on the ground, upwind, and stand on that side as well. This way you avoid getting unnecessarily filthy, eating dirt, and stepping on your detector when you're in the heat of digging passion.
5. Many aluminum bits show up as strong, repeatable, dime-signals, this is annoying, but that's how it is.
6. ALWAYS wear gloves. AND either take off your rings or remember you're wearing then when you want to hand-check items across the coil. If you think you found a meteorite because it beeps when you run it past the coil with your hand, and its actually a ring you're wearing, be prepared to feel like an idiot very soon. If you don't understand why you should ALWAYS wear gloves, check out the photos below of the stuff I found on my own property. I wouldn't touch any of that stuff without gloves on. ALWAYS.
7. When you're starting out, don't use headphones if you can get away with it. Sure, headphones make it much easier to hear the different tones and everything, but when you're just starting to learn your machine, and digging everything you find for the first few days, its VERY annoying to have to keep taking them off and put them back on while digging, especially if you need a big shovel for hard ground. It just makes everything easier to go as simple as possible and reduce annoyances.
Btw, I got a great pair of KOSS KPH/6 lightweight headphones with volume control at wal-mart for $4.98 and a 1/8" male to 1/4" female adapter for $2. You don't need wicked expensive, specially-designed, metal detector-custom headphones, THAT is ridiculous, its TONES and BEEPS. Don't waste your money buying ridiculous, expensive stuff. The idea is to FIND treasure, not SPEND all your money.
That's it!
I have done this for -ONE DAY-, and I have been able to learn all these things, so anyone who does the research and puts the effort into the hobby will get the results, it's not difficult to learn, just stay with it and the time flies by. I can't wait to start driving around finding new places to hunt, one day and I'm hooked.
Here are two pics of today's spoils.
The first pic is of all the glorious riches I unearthed during my first hunt. I was so proud of the things I found that I had this high-end, extremely expensive display case custom made for you guys.
The second pic is of all the random, worthless garbage I found.
Thanks again to everyone on this forum for helping me to understand this new hobby and pursue it in a much more informed way than I would have, had I not been able to read all of your experiences.
With any luck, next time I might find 'a' coin...
I finally got a detector and got to start my treasure hunting career this afternoon and I thought I would share my experience and observations with the forum.
I found such posts extremely helpful during the last couple weeks since I joined and I can't even tell you how many I have read, hours and hours, every day. I can tell you, however, how much I appreciate them! Hopefully some people out there will read this one and find it helpful.
After reading endless posts on this site and researching the plethora of various detector brand names and models all around the web, I finally found one I felt comfortable with that seemed to be a decent all-around unit at a fair price. I then contacted the most local authorized Garrett dealer I could find (an hour drive away), arranged a meeting, stuffed a few Grants in my pocket, and went.
I know I could have saved a bit of money by ordering online, but I prefer to buy locally from people who are not just trying to make a buck, but who are into the hobby as well. In fact, the dealer I purchased my Ace from had turned part of his house into a little Garrett store, very professional looking, but obviously part of his home. Selling Garrett stuff is what he does when he gets home from WORK, so he can stay connected to the hobby even when he can't go hunting.
Around the area were all sorts of other treasure hunting tools, some very 'broken in' looking, such as his collection of prospecting equipment. Even after agreeing on the sale we talked for a almost two hours about the local area history and all the things he has found, which he then proceeded to show me. He then allowed me to hold different kinds of gold pieces and gold nuggets he panned himself. I also got to see a book that detailed relics found from when Spanish Conquistadors traveled through my area 500 years ago, which really got my hopes up.
I had just enough money to buy the detector I was looking for and I wasn't interested in buying anything else, but he wanted to keep teaching me things about the hobby and put things into my hands so I could then get a more personal understanding of them that goes beyond internet and book research. It was like he was glad about making the sale, but was even more happy to be afforded the opportunity to discuss something that was obviously very important to him.
Then, to top it all off, he mentioned that he is even the vice president of the local treasure hunting and prospecting club and invited me to attend that so I could meet others that are into the hobby and learn more about my new detector and others.
You simply cannot get this type of experience from a phone call to warehouse somewhere. Sure, they might be detectorists, but there is just no way you can get this kind of information and service any other way. Besides, now I have a local go-to guy for the stuff I need, and even local hunter-networking. Try stuffing that into a 'free gifts with purchase' package!
So, this morning, after waking up at the bright and early hour of 2pm, having stayed up too late watching the instructional dvd and reading the manual, I grabbed my new ACE, a gallon of water, my backpack, and headed out...
...to my driveway. Sure, driveways are the most common place to start detecting, but I live in middle of nowhere Texas, so mine is BIG.
I took the manuals advice and started slowly, with the default settings. All metal, no discrimination, sensitivity two bars from full. Then, again as advised, I dug EVERYTHING. No amount of reading can prepare you for that this 'everything' means. It doesn't matter how remote you think you are, there is garbage EVERYWHERE. METAL garbage. After roughly two hours of this I learned quite a lot about not just my new detector, but the environment I was trying to work with.
I found out that, being the South-West, a wimpy trowel has no value as digging tool in many places. Since I was just starting out, and on my own property, I grabbed a full-size shovel and just tried to use it 'gently' when it seemed appropriate (or possible). Also, I carried around a big screwdriver to find out what this 'probing' thing is all about, and although I wasn't able to really do that properly, it was useful as like a top-scraper on the dirt, as almost all the garbage I was finding was right at the surface or less than half and inch deep. Even if the target is on the surface the ACE will tell you 2", meaning ' up to 2" ', so, doing that is really helpful.
The ground is so ridiculously hard, being a rocking desert climate, that it appears very unlikely that anything small and of value will get very far from the surface. That said, the only pull-tab I found was almost a foot deep and only a broken half of one. That says a lot about the ACE, in my opinion. I worked like hell to find that thing because it came up as dime. The ACE doesn't lie, if it beeps, there is SOMETHING there!
After about five hours I had to stop and call it a day. As said before, this is Texas, so working in the sun gets difficult very fast. I have to say though, one of the reasons I was able to go even that long, as a first time detector, was that the unit itself seems to weigh almost nothing. I didn't feel any strain at all in my swing-arm, no discomfort at all. my 'shovel' arm, however, will tell you differently, heh.
Like I said, I went all out with no discrimination for two hours, then I started to ignore the iron/foil targets, as the ACE was right on about those and I was getting anxious to at least find one coin, even a common worthless penny, before giving up for the day. I found out very quickly that digging takes time, filling the hole takes time, walking around swinging takes time, and I wanted to cover as many different ground-areas as I could, just for the education value. I can practice the digging later, as the stuff isn't going anywhere, and I plan to go over this area several times as I figure this machine out. One thing I also noticed, regarding time, is that it passes extremely quickly while doing this. I was out for five hours, but until I checked the time, I thought it was maybe two at most. I imagine the 10+ hour days the 'pros' put in are like nothing. This is fun!
To summarize, when you hear 'you can't learn this unless you spend the time with your machine and do the work', its 100% true. With the ACE, the learning seems to come very quickly, as the controls are extremely simple once you begin to understand what the machine is trying to tell you. Like I said before, it doesn't lie, if it says there is something there, there is.
Just a few more things, then some pics, and I'll close my ridiculously long diatribe.
A few tips for others who are starting out. Some of these came to me after I made some newbie mistakes and others I just thought of while walking around. Don't ask which is which, I'm not telling!
1. Read all the forums and websites about the hobby you have time for. Sites like this one are worth their weight in gold for their insights and shared experiences.
2. Read the manuals and watch the videos that come with your machine. Sounds obvious, but I have noticed that most of the problems that inexperienced people are complaining about everywhere are due to not spending 20 minutes with the instructions, how embarrassing for them!
3. Try to not let the coil ever touch the ground while swinging. Of course you hit grass and plants, but bumping the actual dirt was the source of probably 9/10 of the phantom signals I experienced.
4. When you find a signal you want to dig (with a shovel), put your detector at arms length on the ground, upwind, and stand on that side as well. This way you avoid getting unnecessarily filthy, eating dirt, and stepping on your detector when you're in the heat of digging passion.
5. Many aluminum bits show up as strong, repeatable, dime-signals, this is annoying, but that's how it is.
6. ALWAYS wear gloves. AND either take off your rings or remember you're wearing then when you want to hand-check items across the coil. If you think you found a meteorite because it beeps when you run it past the coil with your hand, and its actually a ring you're wearing, be prepared to feel like an idiot very soon. If you don't understand why you should ALWAYS wear gloves, check out the photos below of the stuff I found on my own property. I wouldn't touch any of that stuff without gloves on. ALWAYS.
7. When you're starting out, don't use headphones if you can get away with it. Sure, headphones make it much easier to hear the different tones and everything, but when you're just starting to learn your machine, and digging everything you find for the first few days, its VERY annoying to have to keep taking them off and put them back on while digging, especially if you need a big shovel for hard ground. It just makes everything easier to go as simple as possible and reduce annoyances.
Btw, I got a great pair of KOSS KPH/6 lightweight headphones with volume control at wal-mart for $4.98 and a 1/8" male to 1/4" female adapter for $2. You don't need wicked expensive, specially-designed, metal detector-custom headphones, THAT is ridiculous, its TONES and BEEPS. Don't waste your money buying ridiculous, expensive stuff. The idea is to FIND treasure, not SPEND all your money.
That's it!
I have done this for -ONE DAY-, and I have been able to learn all these things, so anyone who does the research and puts the effort into the hobby will get the results, it's not difficult to learn, just stay with it and the time flies by. I can't wait to start driving around finding new places to hunt, one day and I'm hooked.
Here are two pics of today's spoils.
The first pic is of all the glorious riches I unearthed during my first hunt. I was so proud of the things I found that I had this high-end, extremely expensive display case custom made for you guys.
The second pic is of all the random, worthless garbage I found.
Thanks again to everyone on this forum for helping me to understand this new hobby and pursue it in a much more informed way than I would have, had I not been able to read all of your experiences.
With any luck, next time I might find 'a' coin...
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