When I first got my Ace 250, I played with the settings and struggled to make sense of the sounds. I hunted one way for a couple of days and then I changed the settings, as much as you can on the Ace 250, and then hunted that way for a couple of days more. Meanwhile, the cacophony of sounds wrecked havoc in my brain. Eventually though, I settled on the Jewelry mode as my preferred mode for hunting and by then, the sounds coming out of the 250 were as familiar to me as my own face. The findings reflected my new mastery of the detector. Silver coins, gold rings, and relics oh my!
No sooner did I feel the commander of the Yellow Wonder that I decided I needed more power. So into my life a little AT Pro came. Actually, a lot of AT Pro came. Although the AT Pro comes with the Standard mode, which makes it kind of an Ace 250 on Dilithium crystals, I, being the manly man I am, did not bother to use it. I jumped into the Pro mode right away. My brain had to contend with new tones and new features such as an adjustable Ground Balance. I had to learn a new coil as well. So the purchase of the AT Pro set me back to the proverbial Stone Age. Eventually, through hard work and dedication, I mastered the AT Pro as well. The Pro became a magic wand and I became the Dirt Wizard and all mysteries below the ground were revealed to me. Again, after an initial dearth of good finds, my knowledge of the machine allowed me to find cool stuff again.
If you are in any way like me (God help you!) at some point, before you have the money to upgrade and after you feel you have gotten all the juice out of your equipment, you start looking for ways to expand the detector you have. And that’s what I want to talk about. I know, kind of a long tirade before I got to the point!
One way to expand your detector is to maximize its depth by not using discrimination.
When you first start detecting, you seek refuge into the warm and fuzzy place that is Discrimination. Discrimination keeps you from having to listen to the ugly truth the dirt is telling you. And that truth is that there is a 10,000 to 1 ratio of trash to good finds. (Ok, so maybe I exaggerate a little but before you judge me, hunt some of the parks around here). You live in High Tone City and all is good. However, as they say around here, there is no such thing as a free lunch and using discrimination on your detector comes at a price and that price is depth. Yes, when you use discrimination you lose depth.
The reasons for this involve magic and unicorns and such but it is true. Ask any metal detector engineer and they will tell you so. To get the most depth out of your coil/detector combo, you need to open up the machine. You have to grow up so to speak. You have to learn to handle the truth. I have done it with both the Ace 250 and the AT Pro in an attempt to squeeze just a little more depth out them. And you know what? It wasn’t that bad. Eventually, I got to like knowing what’s under the ground. Iron and all.
So now that I have my V3i, I find myself in that familiar territory. I have been lost in the wilderness of settings and I am coming out ready to open the machine up. I need to find dimes at twelve to fourteen inches deep. I do. I have a park loaded with silver dimes, all beyond the nine inch level. Wish me luck.
Thank you for looking!
The Dirt Is Good To Me 
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