Sweet sounds of silence

[Thylacine]

I decided to air test my ACE 350 with some coins and a couple of gold rings since I have not used it since late November, as it has been hot and dry, the ground like cement, until the rains came and came and Brisbane flooded, again.

I tuned on my ACE and it went nuts, even on the lowest sensitivity setting bleeping the bar jumped all over the display, no matter what I changed it to just noise. I was thinking someone must have dropped it or the coil took a hit, I took it to the front yard thinking there may be some interference from the wireless Internet, same thing happened but not as bad. I took it to the backyard, the ACE went nuts. Then the neighbours dogs started yelping and took off towards its house, hmm hot wire? (Dog fence) The neighbour was in his yard so I called him over, yes they had put in a hot wire for the dogs (always escaping) but he had not buried it, instead the wire is laced into a wire fence! BINGO! The fence is acting as an antenna.

The guy said that he had turned it down but would not turn it down any further and would not turn it off for me to test my theory.

Yesterday I took the ACE and my wife for a drive into the country, found a spot beside a river, cattle country and turned the ACE 350 on, to be rewarded with the sounds of silence, what a joy, I flipped the rings and coins onto the sandy soil beside the river and the ACE found all of them and some bits of iron from the newly built bridge. I was so happy to know my ACE was working.

The 'sounds of silence' was exactly what I wanted to hear!

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

I guess you'll do all your testing away from home now. glad to see that you didn't get washed away. Had to pull over yesterday on the way back from Sydney. IT was absolutely belting down at one section. the hail was thick enough on the ground that it looked like snow.
Mick Evans.

 

[rglyons]

Now, this may sound crazy, but I got the same thing with my Ace 250. Inside, going crazy?????

Finally figured it out (I think). As I got closer to my internet router, the more insane it got.

Is this normal? I haven't a clue.

 

[Thylacine]

rglyons


I am guessing so, the first time I turned on my ACE 350 away from home I was at a park standing under a low (thick) power (?) cable that was running to some temporary work sheds and the ACE went nuts. The second time it played up was near the high tension lines for the train and a big diesel electric went past, I had to be a good 200' from those lines before things settled down. I was only about 50' from them before the train and cursing the ground for being very trashy, then the train came by and I switched the ACE off and ran back to the car fearing something had been burnt out.

I've had my car's cruise control jump to the previous higher setting when driving past the airport at night, after a couple of trips by the airport at night I put two and two together and mentioned it to the dealer, I was told that external sources can interfere with electronic components' but the fix was to turn it off until I passed the airport. I have been told that detecting close to an airport will give false hits if you have line of sight to the radar, but I have not experienced this and I really don't want to test it after the dog fence and train line incidents.

I would keep the 250 away from anything that puts out or carries a signal, so WIFI and coaxial cables would be something to avoid.