BH Radio Shack 3300. Additional testing of the 3300 added.

[Monty]

I ordered a Radio Shack model 3300 today. After a bit of haggling about the price I got it for $108.00 including tax. I kept telling the guy that it is on close out for less but that's what the book showed even with giving him the stock number. None of the local stores had it in stock so I had to order it. He said they had received a note that they were not actually closing them out......that they were being held at the warehouse until the Christmas items came out and that the only way to get one unless I found one left over in a store was to special order it. I need another detector like a hole in the head! This makes five! I have read so much good about that particular model that it seems to be in the class of the ACE 250 and for a hundred bucks how could I pass it up? I plan on keeping it in the box until one of my grandkids expresses an interest in MDing and then give it to her (they're all girls)! It will be here Tuesday evening and I am going to pick it up as my wife would absolutely kill me if she knew! I met a guy at the lake a couple of weeks ago and he had one. He said he had a high dollar brand X, but didn't use it much any more as he liked the 3300 better because of the light weight and it found just as much "stuff" as his M......oops! Almost told! Question....Does the 3300 have a manual ground balance and a volume control? Monty

 

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[Davisdog]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

I just got one of these yesterday for $105.97 out the door. It was a floor model, so it came with an extended warranty. I've been told at two different stores that once the floor stock is gone, these will be order only items at full price. Good job ordering at the closeout price. It's my second modern detector, the first being a BH 1100 about 1 1/2 months ago.

The 3300 does have manual GB, but I've read elsewhere that it only affects the pinpoint mode. The manual doesn't confirm that though.

I only had a chance to hunt for a couple of minutes in the front yard yesterday. In a spot that was thoroughly hunted with the 1100, I dug one hole and found one coin.

If the rain lets up today, I'll take it out to the park for a longer test drive.

 

[da Hobo]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

Just my very quick and brief reply . . . . I will try to expand on it later.

I bought the 3300 at a near-by Radio Shack on Monday for $89.97. I tried it at my favorite playground on Tuesday. I returned it on Friday for a full refund. From my brief exposure to it at an otherwise good site my opinion?? Even at that VERY low price it wasn't worth it. I'm sure others are having better luck but it wasn't for me. I have an ACE 250 and another BH (cheaper) and am still looking for a Tesoro at a real low $$. Details on this will follow if I can get a break from other things.

Hobo

 

[Monty]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

On with the comparison! And thanks for the responses so far.
I headed out to a vacant lot where an early 1900s house was just demolished, same spot I found a 1902 V nickel earlier. The manual said to ground balance your detector before you used the pinpoint feature. I goofed around for an hour before I gave up and just ran it as is. When I got home with no time restraints I figured it out in about 5 minutes. Felt really dumb! I dug a bunch of junk and one clad penny in about two hours! The darn thing kept lighting up on rusty metal even with all the iron discriminated out, and there was a bunch at this site. The ACE picks up some of the rusted metal but not all of it. I hope it's because I didn't ground balance? The manual also said to reground balance every time you change locations. I don't know if that's a suggestion or a given and I can see where the continuous ground balancing could be a pain in the rear! Only way to find out is to try it next time I have it out. The GB knob has a preset position and I am guessing that is the factory default setting? The manual is sorely lacking in information. You are supposed to be able to set it up to your custom settings as far as discrimination goes by using the "notch mode". I never could get this to work either. I gotta' figure this out too before I do a comparison between it and the ACE Custom Mode.Trying to work under power lines is futile. It falsees all over the place.....but so does the ACE, so they're even up in that category.Some complained about the shaft being wobbly, but it didn't wobble enough to make me take notice. It wasn't a problem with mine. I took my new Radio Shack stereo earphones with me but discovered I didn't have my adapter plug with me! So, I had to use it without the phones. Nearby highway traffic was a problem noise wise while the ACE will blast your ears off! My biggest problem with the 3300 was just plain unfamiliarity. I really need to get it out a few more times and work with it, so until next time..... Monty

 

[Davisdog]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

I've been using mine nearly every day at the local state park. Though I'm still learning this machine, I love it so far. I've found that the pinpoint mode is dead on!

The biggest issue I have with it is on iron. As posted above, it will pick up rusted iron even when using discrimination. I haven't used the notch much, as I'm afraid that I will eliminate too much good stuff. I'd hate to discriminate out the pull tabs and miss a gold ring!

One problem I encountered yesterday was after hunting in about 1 1/2 feet of water for about an hour. I started getting high tones with a 199 readout on nearly every swing. The problem continued for the next half hour after I was back on land. I noticed that there was water seeping out of the coil housing. When the water stopped coming out, the problem went away. I'll be sticking to dry ground with this coil from now on. BTW, after the problem went away, I found several coins, including a '46 wheatie.

 

[PostFatal]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

that coil shouldn't leak, send it back.

 

[Monty]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

I made it out to a local park today to work with the 3300 some more. I have figured out how everything works now and ran it for about two hours at random throughout a section of the park. I even ground balanced it before I started! Well, I dug a ton of junk and more junk and finally got about 40 cents in clad. I found out that when the icon was showing penny or dime, it could be anything from a penny or dime to a beer can or something even bigger! It was not accurate at all and you could only guess what you might find in the plug. With my ACE 250, if it is showing dime, quarter, penny, etc, it would deliver whatever the icons was showing. With the 3300 you can only guess. With aut going into painful detail I can sum this up fairly accurately in my experience. The 3300 is light, kinda' fun to use and is probably a good beginner's machine. It will find "stuff" and should make a good detector for hunting artifacts as it loves iron! Even with the discrimination turned way up it will still light up on rusty metal and show it as a silver or clad coin. Pinpointing is easy and accurate. The coin depth is not accurate at all. I consistently had to dig at least two inches deeper than what the LCD readout was showing. Compare it with the ACE 250? It really isn't a match. Other than the ability to ground balance manually, the ACE has the edge in every aspect as far as I am concerned. My recommendation? Spend the extra hundred bucks and get the ACE! Monty

 

[Stainless Steet Rat]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

I think they do love rusty iron I though it was just me having that problem. I have noticed in damp ground I can get almost any kind of readings on rusted items. I have dug up a LOT of rusted washers reading as quarters or higher. I have noticed I get more false readings on 5-6 sensitivity and when I move the ground balance from preset. I know if I am getting 199s that I am way off but are false readings of iron 1 depth 10 does that mean I am off on ground balance also?

 

[Monty]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

I'm not understanding what you are asking about the iron reading 1 depth 10? If your ground balance is way off you should be getting a lot of false readings and a lot of noise unrelated to any target signal.That little pointer under the icons probably would be jumping all over the place. Is that what you are asking? Also, I noticed that my thumb had a tendency to inadvertantly hit the ground balance knob and move it from the setting where I had it. Need some way to lock that thing down so it won't move so easily. Monty

 

[Monty]

Re: BH Radio Shack 3300.

I'm not understanding what you are asking about the iron reading 1 depth 10? If your ground balance is way off you should be getting a lot of false readings and a lot of noise unrelated to any target signal.That little pointer under the icons probably would be jumping all over the place. Is that what you are asking? Also, I noticed that my thumb had a tendency to inadvertantly hit the ground balance knob and move it from the setting where I had it. Need some way to lock that thing down so it won't move so easily. Monty P.S. Flea, notch is the little arrow under the icon that is discriminated out or "notched" out. Just a slang term.

 

[Monty]

I have about 12 hours on the 3300 now and can make some more observations. (the batteries were 3/4 discharged at 9 hours and I changed them out). It has a "ZAP" pad where you are supposed to be able to instantly notch out an unwanted icon, but it will not notch out anything past the zinc one cent icon. Anything else to the right stays permanently. You also cannot notch out anything past the zinc one cent icon with the "NOTCH" button. If you have several icons notched out and have to use the pinpoint button, your notched out icons will not be saved except for the first three on the left and you have to redo anything else you wanted notched out.
The target's VDO number is displayed in the discriminate mode and the all metal mode. It is not displayed in the pin point mode. If you have two targets that are near each other it is sometimes hard to tell which one you are pinpointing. I have found that once you have a target pinpointed, you can quickly press the Discriminate key and go back to all metal where the VDO number will be displayed, then quickly repress the Pin Point button to be sure you are over the correct target. (An example of what I am talking about would be when you get a pull tab tone and a dime tone in almost in the same spot, or perhaps the dime is under the pull tab and you are getting two mixed tones).
Different sized coils: I have two additional coils for my BH LandRanger. I emailed BH and was advised that the coils would work on the 3300 just fine. They didn't mention sending them in to get them tuned to the detector as I have read elsewhere. The first thing I noticed with the 3300 and changing coils, the ground balance is way off and has to be reset. I have the 10" coil and the 4 1/2" Gold Nugget Coil. The 10" coil seems to work fairly well if not a little harder to pin point, but it should get easier with experience. The small coil I tested "in the chips" and in order to get very close to a metal pole you have to turn the discrimination way back to the first notch and at that you still get a lot of noise. As long as the signal tone is just one way, you know for sure it is the pole. But some times it would false signal both directions if you got too close. With the coil on the LandRanger I can get right up within inches of a post before it will interfere. The little coil was hard to ground balance too and that may have been part of the problem. Both coils suffered from interference from overhead power lines. So much so that you kept getting a dime or larger coin signal all the time you are under the power line.
Just a few of the operation tips I have learned thus far. Of course every detector is slightly different and may function somewhat different on yours, so bear that in mind. Monty

 

[Blackjack77]

Nice observations about the 3300. I almost entirely quit using it now that I have the GTI 2500. I find it hard to switch between the two as the operation and what the detector is telling Me -quite different. The 3300 does love iron!!
It also gave Me some great finds, but i think most midrange on up MD's would have had similiar results. A friend borrowed this one and found alot of coins using it in pinpoint mode!!! i don't think He would have had good luck except wasn't very trashy!! Each to his own!!
Still a fun detector to use- -light and easy on the arm.
Again, I did find a lot of stuff!!
HH

 

[dahut]

BH Radio Shack 3300....some thoughts

...First thanks Monte. Your dedication and helpfulness shine everytime.

From what I hear from users, its a love hate relationship - mostly hate. Some like it but most end up getting rid of it or leaving it in the closet.

It MIGHT make a fair behind the seat detector, but I would prefer to pick up a Tesoro of some sort on ebay. I recently saw a Cutlass for $120, Bandido II uMax for $182 and
Sidewinder for $111 - all "sold" prices.

I gotta confess to a distaste for the "cheaplastijunk" (as my dad used to say) feel of these BH units, too. I know, they can become the "Geo Metro" of the detector world that way, but to borrow a phrase from Forrest Gump:
"Junk is as junk does."

I normally suggest to the newbie to buy a used QUALITY detector for the first time. If they like the hobby, they have a good unit to add to their arsenal. If they dont like it, they can sell it and lose very little. I even bought one once for a guy who knew nada about them, then sold it to him for purchase cost - just so he could get something decent.
He didnt like the hobby and 6 months later, I bought it back. Then sold it on ebay for a profit!!

For my two cents, Ill pass on the 3300/BH/WalMart detectors.
We'll just have to wait and see what the new Fisher/1st Texas/BH/T2's become.