A hit then its gone???

I know the feeling, just tried my new ace this morning for like 40 minutes I felt exactly the same.. the result was 3 beer bottle caps and a pepsi bottle cap..
I've got to figure how it works since the manual is.. well rather useless..

one other quick question...for ace 250 users...when you got your ace were there batteries in it or in a package in the box...not sure if the guy i bought mine from tested it or what?? hard to think that they would ship from the factory with them in it thats just not sound to me...might have a gripe to place if things seam funky.
thanks, Jay


::UPDATE::
didn't want to repost but wanted to give a big thanks to Epi for the help...read a lot of posts but never any real advise on how to start this crazy hobby :P

For a quick test - try going to custom mode and set the Ace to 'beep' on just dime and quarters. This will eliminate much chatter and give you a good feel for what tones are for coins. You may of course get some mis-reads also. I find that bottle caps ring as dimes now and then. Head to the nearest playground (early AM - before kids) for a test. Usually some coinage there. Dimes may ring up as pennies, IMHO, happens way too often ;-(

Once you get a feel for it, then set it up to beep on penny, then nickel, pulltab, and "if you feel lucky punk", half dollar :P

I suggest custom mode as those settings stay after you power down and up. Any other setting (coins, all metal, etc) will reset after turning off.

To use the discrim is easy - just press the discrim (+, - to go left right on settings) button until you see the notch over the setting you want eliminated/restored. Press elim, and you will see the little black rectangle appear/dissapear. For just dime and quarter mode, there should just be two rectangles, one under the dime, and one under the quarter.

For sensistivity, I wuld go with just 4 notches to start off with - that will still detect just fine.

For stuff on the surface, your Ace will probably sound like a slot machine