My First Day

scottlindberg

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Joined
Feb 2, 2007
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Location
Champaign, IL
Detector(s) used
Garrett Ace 250
Hello! I've been lurking here for a year or so, but today I am finally coming out of the shadows. I've been blabbering about wanting a metal detector to my family and friends for years. I had a little Radio Shack detector when I was a kid and remember having a really great time with it, but my wife thought I was crazy for wanting to get a metal detector as an adult. This year, however, my entire family chipped in and bought me a Garrett Ace 250 for my birthday. Even though that's still a couple weeks away, I received a package in the mail this afternoon from Kellyco! I immediately read the manual, watched the video, and suited up to head out into the back yard to practice swinging.

My very first find was a 10" long screwdriver shaft, which required I dig a trench in my back yard to extract. I really need to work on pinpointing, but I hope that will come with more practice. After the screwdriver, I started digging a bunch of foil and wire. The foil sometimes rang as a nickel on my display, but I was digging everything for practice so it really didn't matter. In the future, I'm going to have to try to tell the difference between a real nickel signal and garbage. Somewhere in the midst of unearthing wire and foil, I also found the handle end of a file (I think). It's like someone dumped their toolbox in my back yard and sodded over it. Both the screwdriver and (possible) file handle were at about 6 inches.

After 2 hours of hunting I got my first solid coin signal. The indicator flipped back and forth between penny and dime, which confused me a little bit. When I dug the plug, a 1969 Lincoln memorial cent popped out. My first coin turns out to be from the same year as me! Before filling the hole, I ran the detector over the hole again and it hit dime once more. After a little more poking around, out came a 1995 dime ... explaining the weird signal I got.

No great treasures for my first two hour with the Ace 250, but finding my first two coins was a thrill. Consider me addicted.

070911.webp
 

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There is no turning back now! You have been afflicted with a terrible, non-curable disease called metal detecting. Most likely you will keep it for life! Keep swinging and you will start to find the good stuff. It just takes practice to learn your detector and don't get discouraged if you find nothing but tabs at first. You'll get the hang of it! HH!
Mike ;)
 

Welcome Scott the lurker.
Isn't it fun bringing finds out of the ground?
Keep practicing and the world will give you all
sorts of wonderful things!!!
 

I think with that ACE 250 you'll be getting some nice finds soon enough!
 

Congrats and welcome to the forum!
 

welcome to TN and you are off to a great start. Got to love those relic tools everyone seems to find in there yards. At my dads we detected and came out with kudos of them. All these years he always yelled at my brothers for losing his tools. Of course now we tell him they were never lost just simply misplaced and we have since located them.

Best of luck to ya in this new hobby
 

Welcome aboard buddy,sounds like you got the bug.Keep digging ,the good stuff is out there.
 

Good Luck!

HH
-GC
 

:o Scott, now that you're out in the Open, welcome to Tnet. Happy Birthday even if it is a few weeks away yet. That was a great gift the family gave you, enjoy it, it will bring you many many hours of fun. Your off to a great start. Happy Hunting

Desertfox
 

Welcome to Tnet Scott and the great hobby of MD. Like yourself my family thought I lost it when I went out and bought my detector. So you know what a penny dime signal sounds like. I would recommend you plant a coin garden about 3" down and place one of each coin in the hole. Make sure you are far enough away so you don't pick up two signals. This way you will get to better know the tones of each coin.

I don't have a 250 but have heard nothing but good thing about them. You will start finding the clad and good stuff soon. Welcome Again and HH.
Roy
 

The great treasure here is a renewed hobby. Welcome back to detecting, you'll love your Ace. Happy Birthday!
 

Greetings and Welcome! I'm always glad to see someone else from Illinois on here. The Ace is a great machine and with some practice, you'll be finding lots of neat stuff. This site is a great resource for someone just starting out with lots of questions. Good luck and happy hunting.
 

Good work and welcome to aboard! Your family got you a really good machine, and there are alot of posts here about. I would really look through some of them, as you will read stuff you wouldn't find in the manual. Congrats on your first finds, you did well.
 

I'm going to have to try to tell the difference between a real nickel signal and garbage

around 22 years and i still cant tell. ;D

there is only one certainty: if you dont dig, you wont know what it is.

sounds like youre off to a real good start....have fun!

sometimes older copper coin readings will bounce around a bit..... i usually dig if its a decent signal. if i get an "iffy" signal i might turn 90 degrees and sweep that way and see what the detector says. sometimes you get a bouncy deep signal and maybe end up with a real old wheat or an indian head. they read lower like the new zinc style pennies.
 

SOUNDS LIKE YOUR WELL ON YOUR WAY GREAT FIRST DAY. WELCOME, HOPE TO HEAR MORE GREAT STORIES
 

Welcome from the UK. To the worlds crazyest hobby :)
 

Welcome Scott! We don't think you are crazy for wanting a detector. :) It appears you are off to a great start. We use an Ace 250 and at first the pinpointing drove us nuts but with practice it has gotten much better. Remember most people aren't posting all the trash they find. But you will find some neat stuff if you are persistent and patient.

HH
 

Welcome to TNet! Not bad at all for a first day. Keep at it and things will get better.
 

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