I went out this afternoon to a 1928 school with my long suffering Explorer XS and new Garrett pinpointer.
After only a short while I popped a 1945 wheatie from two inches, followed by 1972 and 1966 pennies; both shallow finds. So I'm starting to get a little excited and think maybe the place hasn't been hammered to death already. The signals were clear as could be.
Then........the audio on the machine starts cutting out both with and without the phones. I turned it off and on and noise cancelled with no change. It would do it with the coil 5 feet in the air and nowhere near the ground. There were no overhead power lines nearby. I pulled the battery and restarted and no change. So I kept going and shortly thereafter the entire thing goes ape and continuously makes every sound in the book while the crosshairs are jumping all over the screen. I moved a ways off into a new area and no change. Even with the coil held high overhead and following more noise cancellation, it's still very erratic and unstable and just bouncing and chirping all over the place. It was useless, so I bagged the trip and came home. (The same audio issue happened a few days ago in the woods but the machine never became unstable and started chirpping like a nuthouse full of magpies.)
When I got home, I turned it on in the garage and the damn thing seems to be 'normal'; nice steady even hum on the audio and the crosshairs were stable. I've put a lot of hours on this machine and it never did this audio and wacky signal stuff before. What gives? Any ideas?
After only a short while I popped a 1945 wheatie from two inches, followed by 1972 and 1966 pennies; both shallow finds. So I'm starting to get a little excited and think maybe the place hasn't been hammered to death already. The signals were clear as could be.
Then........the audio on the machine starts cutting out both with and without the phones. I turned it off and on and noise cancelled with no change. It would do it with the coil 5 feet in the air and nowhere near the ground. There were no overhead power lines nearby. I pulled the battery and restarted and no change. So I kept going and shortly thereafter the entire thing goes ape and continuously makes every sound in the book while the crosshairs are jumping all over the screen. I moved a ways off into a new area and no change. Even with the coil held high overhead and following more noise cancellation, it's still very erratic and unstable and just bouncing and chirping all over the place. It was useless, so I bagged the trip and came home. (The same audio issue happened a few days ago in the woods but the machine never became unstable and started chirpping like a nuthouse full of magpies.)
When I got home, I turned it on in the garage and the damn thing seems to be 'normal'; nice steady even hum on the audio and the crosshairs were stable. I've put a lot of hours on this machine and it never did this audio and wacky signal stuff before. What gives? Any ideas?