G'day Travis.
the Ace is just an awesome machine that will keep allowing you to keep learning new things from it if you want to. It is also so accurate with it's pinpoint, that you can just beep and dig, if that's what you want to do as well. I've got around 260 hours on this machine to date, and it seems to keep giving up new information that I hadn't discovered before. the first 10 hours can be real frustrating, but after that, you gain confidence and those early frustrations will become no more than a distant memory.
The key to learning this machine, as with any other, is to practice at home with various coins rings eta plus a good assortment of common junk items that you will come across. I still practice at home, so that I can be a better hunter. A curious nature is really helpful here and as Charles Garrett says in his books; "each time you go over a target, try and guess what it is each time". This will help you enormously.
As to specific techniques that will help you out in the field. The first tool is your meter. Watch how targets bounce around on it. As coins and rings have a regular shape, they will usually behave in a predictable manner. Put them in the ground vertically as well, as they behave a bit differently when in the ground at different angles. Also watch your depth meter, as this can give you some good clues as to what is going on.
The next and equally powerful tool available to you, is the pinpoint mode. If you spend time messing about with it, you will find this to be a very potent tool to have. It is almost as good as the GTI's imaging ability! If you want to just pinpoint accurately on shallow targets, just use the 12 o'clock position of the inner coil to locate your targets. However, if you want to milk information out of the pinpoint then using the same location for the most part, lift your coil till you have at least 4 inches of separation at least. If you don't then you can't tell if you have a target that is larger than a coin or not.ie coke cans will have a sudden drop off of signal as well. That is one of the key things to listen for on the pinpoint. It's how the signal fades. Once you have around 4 inches of separation, then larger targets become quite easy to figure out from coins. This will be all the more true for US coins, as they tend to be smaller than our Aussie coins. Coins generally have a fairly rapid drop off of signal while targets that are larger, and that includes screw caps, tend to want to hang onto the signal. a coke can at depth will seem to hang onto the signal for quite a while, so while the depth meter will be telling you it is close to the surface, the pinpoint will be telling you the truth. If you have a signal that seems to be very long, turn the coil 90 degrees and hit the pinpoint again to check the target. Unfortunately, if you pick up a second target under the coil while in pinpoint, then it will seem like you are detecting a length of pipe. checking the target like this will tell you what is going on.
There is more that can be said, but this will give you a fair amount of information to absorb for now, so Ihope you enjoy the Ace. it's a top little machine that performs better than some folks realise.
Mick Evans.
Ace 250 classroom as well a few days ago, but got shot 
out of the water.
