GARRETT ACE 150 TREASURE HUNTER

GARRETT ACE 150 TREASURE HUNTER

FIELD TEST
The first stop in field testing the Ace 150 was my test garden checking its response to typical good and bad targets. The 150 was quite impressive in its detection depth and target ID accuracy - especially considering its price tag. After a few trips through the test garden, I jumped into the truck and headed over to a local elementary school to run the 150 through the playground which was covered by bark chips and always held a nice assortment of coins and other "keepers".
Selecting the JEWELRY search mode and setting the Sensitivity to the 3rd notch, I started hunting near some of the climbing equipment. The Ace 150 ran very quiet despite occasionally bumping the coil against the railroad ties the lined the area. It was obvious that the new open black epoxy coil had been designed to stand up to the rigors of treasure hunting and eliminate falsing found on some other coils. Coins were plentiful and an hour at this location turned up close to 30 coins, an Avon ring and a silver religious medal.
The next area I took the Ace 150 to, was a public park just north of Atlanta while in town on business. It was the site of a local club's annual hunt and was also hunted by locals on a regular basis but I was hoping that some goodies might have been left due to the sheer size of the park. There was a good deal of surface trash visible so I opted for the COINS search mode and dropped the Sensitivity to the 2nd notch to minimize chatter from the unwanted targets.
Over the years I have found that the large grassy parking area has always been good for 'a find or two' and so I started in that section of the park. There was some "popping" caused by pull-tabs and other trash; however, since the signals did not repeat, they were easily discernible from the good targets that were scattered throughout the area. I was somewhat surprised at the number of coins I was finding (although they were all recent dates) and stayed longer than I had intended. As the sun began to set I started walking back to the rental car picking up coins the entire way. A little more than three hours had netted me almost $11 in change, several sets of car keys, a Zippo lighter that still worked and a few coat buttons (unfortunately none were from Civil War uniforms . . . one can wish no?)
The last site I took the Ace 150 to before the field test was due was a schoolyard near our house in central Pennsylvania. I brought my son Paul and daughter Leigh to see how younger treasure hunters would do with one of the new Ace detectors.
Paul opted for the Ace 250 (and his experience will be covered in that field test report) while Leigh took the Ace 150. After a brief explanation of the controls and a demonstration of what good targets sounded like, she walked over to the swing sets and started hunting. It wasn't long before she hit her first target - a quarter at just over 4 inches deep in the wood chips. Pinpointing the target took her a little longer than with the detector she typically used; however, after a few signals and with the smaller coil size, she was able to get within an inch or so of the target before I was prompted to do the digging to recover it. We only had a limited amount of time to try the Ace's out but in that time Leigh picked up several coins - some of which had obviously been there for some time. She said that it had been comfortable to swing and easy to understand what the LCD was telling her.

SUMMARY
The new Ace 150 offers surprising performance as well as features not found on detectors anywhere near this price range. Its intuitive controls and lightweight make it an ideal detector for competition hunts, novices or as a back-up detector. It is a detector that makes treasure hunting fun and does so without putting a dent in your wallet. The only drawback to the Ace 150 is that it does not have a non-motion pinpoint mode; however, with a little practice, targets can be pinpointed fairly accurately.

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