What can make a 3300 go crazy.

[Stainless Steet Rat]

Some of this is from other people but I have experenced most of these problems that can make my 3300 pick up false reading or beep like crazy.
One or two low batteries or one battery not making good contact.
Not getting a good connection on the coil plug.
Overhead and underground power lines, farther than you might think.
Those mercury vapor street lights I could point the coil at them in the air at 20 feet away and get beeps.
All kinds of RF interference, from a police station transmitter, walkie talkie, even a RC plane.
Other metal detectors, White's mxt messed me up at almost 20 feet away.
Bumping the ground balance knob from preset or wrong settings on the ground balance.
Sensitivity too high.
Even a little bit of dampness sometimes.
Picking up metal in your shoes as you swing the coil by(I had steal toed boots on.)

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

How to Research for Treasure Hunting and Metal Detecting From Lead Generation to Vetting - Grab it through Amazon!

[PostFatal]

I had the shoe thing happen to me, had the shaft extended so the coil was at least 2 feet away but it still picked up the steel toes on the swing.

 

[Stainless Steet Rat]

I didn't put cellphones on the list because I have used a digital cellphone and had no problems, maybe analog cellphone might mess a 3300 up. On the Mxt the user changed from the default freq. and I will still getting interfrence but he was ok at the same distance.

 

[cwe]

Thanks for the info...I have been having many false readings
and when I dig I get nothing.the pin pointer zeros in and nothing.

I have read the book over and over and I still do not know what I
doing wrong...just more practice I guess...I love doing this...I
sure hope this works out my grandfather never believe in banks
my cousin bought his old home and we are looking for buried cans
of money and anything else.

My grandfather put his money into cans ...so I got to get this right.

again thanks.
cwe ( Patti)

 

[PostFatal]

the last two times I took my 3300 out in the front yard I dug a lot of empty holes. I at first attributed it to batteries or extra deep trash that showed up as 4 inches but thinking back I realize that my neighbor had his rc car out at the same time.

 

[Blackjack77]

I've had similar problems, even tools used for digging being too close. I've only had this problem one time but was getting erratic readings on a very dry windy day, reduced sensitivity and was much better. rained over nite and now same area showed no problem,even with sensitivity up high- -go figure.
Overall I'm very pleased for the price!!

 

[Monty]

cwe, better late than never. If you hunt on the discriminate mode, iron is discriminated out. You will need to go in all metal if you want to find those buried cans of dough. Common sense, but easy to overlook. Monty

 

[Davisdog]

I've found a lot of clad, my first gold, my first silver, and a bunch of other cool stuff with my 3300. I've used it dozens of times with no problem (other than it's love of iron.)

Then one day not too long ago, I was using it in the back yard, an area I've detected many times, and it wouldn't stop beeping. It was going crazy even in the air. Changing the batteries didn't help. Decreasing the sensitivity all the way helped a little, but not enough to matter (besides, I like to search deeper than 1/2".)

The only thing that was different that day was it was a bit damper than usual. I was sure my dectector had gone on the fritz. I even dug out the receipt, cause I was going to take it in for warranty work. The next day, I tried it again prior to going back to the store, and it worked fine.

I always have my cell phone with me (digital) and it never seems to matter. There is one spot I detect that I just can't use the 3300. It's an old RR station, with history going back to around 1850. Unfortunately it's right next to an electric substation and has overhead lines. No matter what I do with the settings, it yells at me non-stop. I do use a Garrat GTAx 550 there with no problem.

 

[Monty]

Forgot to add, what makes it go crazy I'm betting is because the batteries aren't making good contact. In the later models they even tell you to put a cardboard shim inside to hold the batteries in place! That seems kind of shoddy to me. Looks like they would add just a couple of thousandths to the plastic holding the batteries in place on the new models. Next thing you know they'll be telling us to wrap that flimsy shaft with duct tape.....their way of fixing things. Monty