more depth from the ace 250

[wingman]

is there a way to get more depth?ive already got the 9-12 coil and thats helped some.
i've hit seven old 1 room school houses and three church dating back to 1821 and so far this year ive got 4 wheats and 1 war nickle.
i'm finding clad by the load,but not much past 4 inches.
is there a way to boost it?
i'm on vacation this week and would like a keeper or two,and i'm going nuts!

thanks all
wing

 

[hollowpointred]

the only thing i can suggest is to slow down and overlap your swings. remember that the signal looks like an upside down cone going into the soil, so at the deeper depths, the signal will be pretty narrow. those deepies are easy to miss. you should be able to get 6 to 8 inches with your ace. in my opinion its more of a matter of getting your narrow signal over those deep coins so you can detect them.

 

[jeff of pa]

and a good pair of Headphones that Block out all outside sound.

 

[warsawdaddy]

Keep the coil on the ground.Go slow.

 

[Digginman]

I've started hunting in All Metal Mode. It seems to help alot. I find alot more deeper stuff.

DM

 

[flip]

the only thing I would add to all the good tips above is to run the sens. as high as you can stand it and listen for the good repeatable tones.If I get a good bing during the sweep, but no signal when pinpointing its usually a deep coin. good luck

 

[EDDE]

go all metal and bring xtra batteries

 

[drver]

go all metal and bring xtra batteries

Dittos

 

[Monty]

I've always been able to detect targets in the 6 to 8 inch depths with my ACE250. Maybe there just aren't any coins deeper than 4"? That's the case with a fairly new park near my house. Monty

 

[dahut]

Monte may be on to something here. All the other suggestions are good and should be a part of your "bag of tricks," de facto. But, much as we wish it, there isn't a carpet of old coins just beneath surface everywhere we step. This is just as much the case at "old" sites as anywhere else.
A thing to keep in mind is that people back in the day didnt have pockets bursting with change like we do now. A coin, say a quarter, had real buying power and they tended to be exchanged as opposed to broken down by convenience into smaller denominations.
Also consider that detcting as a pastime has been around for 40 years now - if you can see a site, or know of it, so will others, I assure you.
Schools, while they were a gathering spots for the community, ditto churches, will have productive areas, as opposed to having quantities of coins just scattered about, all over the place. Many things were done "out back," or in a side field like picnics and socials; or just plain inside the building, like meetings and political rallies. Too, what you see today may not be where ANYTHING was decades ago. We have several old school houses around here that were MOVED to their current sites. Same for churches. I have some very old maps that surprised me, when I learned such little known details. Knowing where stuff WAS is more important than where it IS.
Im not saying there are NO coins to be found, but if they are there, you will have to be patient and look for overlooked "zones of activity" from the past.

 

[Sandman]

Dahut and Monty, you hit the nail on the head. Sometimes you just have to get in the heavy brush that wasn't growing there in times past. Overlapping the sweeps is the best advice for the deeper stuff. Sometimes increasing the sensitivity gets you more depth, but I find it usually has the detector see more ground matrix and the deep coin signals get mixed up. I've learned this in my test garden. Increase sens. to far and the coin disappears. Back it off a little and the coin comes back.

 

[Danimal]

Even when the ACE is in the selected "All-Metal" mode, it is using circuitry to reduce falsing, and that reduces depth.
The only way to get TRUE All Metal on the ACE is when in pinpoint. You then are in a non-motion all metal mode. When you depress pinpoint, you will hear a subtle threshold tone, and can listen closely for very small increases in that tone. The pitch won't change (like on a DFX or EX), but the level of tone will raise. You can get significant depth increases this way, and detect VERY small items. You will also find that you can run sens at max and not get falsing from hot rocks, soil mineralization, etc. You may get some falsing once pinpoint is released (to try and get a target ID), but usually if you release pinpoint while centered over a target, it won't false much. When hunting "normally" with the ACE, headphones are nice, but don't really do much to help detecting, as you ONLY hear one of three tones....and can easily tell which tone you are hearing, either high ring, high flat, or low ferrous....not much real audio data there that headphones help to distinguish. Headphones are CRITICAL when in pinpoint to hear that threshold increase. Unlike Garrett's better units that have adjustable threshold levels, on the ACE you have to play with coil height from the ground when depressing pinpoint to get the right threshold tone.
I spend most of my time hunting while in pinpoint, releasing only momentarily to get an ID attempt.
BTW, there's a guy who will mod you ACE to bypass the board-mounted pinpoint button, and mount a DFX pinpoint trigger under the unit. While pulled back, it pinpoints as normal. When pushed forward, it locks in on pinpoint mode (excellent for the way I hunt with the ACE)...the lock on will also be great for when you are digging a deep plug, you can lock pinpint on, and pass soil past the coil as you dig (with headphones on) , listening for the target.
For those of you using a Sunray probe, imagine having pinpoint locked on while using your probe....rather than hearing the "ding-ding" as you point your probe in different directions in the hole, you will actually hear the threshold tone increase as you point more and more directly at the target....!!!