Beache Hunter ID

[therover]

Also, make sure your threshold is not too high. I know when you hunt there near the lake there is probably a lot of wind and backround noise, but try to keep the threshold to a minumum. You may need to turn it up slightly when ground balancing so you can hear the differences in rise/fall until you get it settled...then lower it a bit.

If the machine starts to become erratic as you are hunting, hit the reset button, go back to all metal and ground balance again. The GB procedure, as you know, takes about 30 seconds when you get the hang of it. You may also have to lower the sensitivity.

I think I stated this before, if you cannot get a good GB, it may be OK to just set the GB knob in the middle of the range.

Worst thing you can do with this machine is run it too hot in the highly mineralized soil/sand. I have hunted a black sand beach ( at some point I will take a picture of it) that is loaded with iron and tons of black sand. I can't use too high a sensitivity on the BHID300 on this beach...yet a few miles up the road, the beach is white sand and I can run the BHID300 hotter.

Whenever you start to see erratic, flashing lights from red to green to orange, etc. when you are swinging, the machine is too hot. Especially when in all metal.

JC

 

[desmond]

Thanks again. Des

 

[redbird]

Hey desmond This machine is kick@#$ in all metal and using a straight rod makes it more comfortable and easier to swing but the only thing wrong I find is the switch it keeps going back to disc" whites you need to address this problem" and don't forget to lock your coil with the plastic thingy which you can make one your self ,Hey des I know you from the alantic tresure club you were there for a while, but I left the club because there was not too much excitement, you know boring coin raffles what you find and such. I need a place where you can get together and find places to hunt No donuts please!!

 

[desmond]

Thanks for the suggestion. I never bothered hooking up the plastic bracket that came with the machine. I guess I will. Looked like a pain in the butt. Des in Buffalo

 

[Sven]

I'm a Buffalo native who has detected the area since about 1970 until I moved to Ga 4 years ago.
The beaches can give many detectors a problem. Lots of crap in the water, like Andy said slag, iron. Plus aluminum slag
on the Canadian shores near Crystal Beach. Lots of industry and shipping.....a hundred years of ship wrecks carrying nails and the nails that held them together. Need to mention all the crap and garbage washed into the lake and breaks up during the heavy storms. They used to barge out Buffalo's garbage and dump it into the lake up to the 30's. Yes, black sand out there, too.
I used to walk the waterfront after the huge onshore storms for years. Found tons of fishing lures, boating equipment and other cool stuff. Up until the last 3 years living in Buffalo, others found out.........competition......a lot fewer stuff to find. You had to get there before sun-up.

Don't feel bad if your having problems, your not alone.

The Tiger Shark will go nuts in some areas and the noise will drive you nuts. It found lots and lots small gold and silver stuff, coins. But, the sound is one reason I got rid of it. Quack, quack, quack, thing needs a loud sound limiter in the headset.....

I have found for water hunting the Fisher 1280x was rather smooth, more pleasant sounding.

And the Detectorpro Wader handles the grounds on par with the Fisher.

I only used the 8" coils.

The biggest problem with Buffalo beaches as well as the Canadian beaches is the fact the sand is deep and it doesn't get turned over like the Coastal Ocean beaches with storms, in and out tides. Gold and heavy objects sink, and sink deep. Until they hit bedrock or clay bottom. Doesn't take long for them to disappear to a depth that a detector can't pick them up. Most water drops are usually fresh and not many years old. So if you don't get them quick, they are gone.

I do know of one odd beach in Canada where the rings and coins do travel up the beach, it may take a number of years. Should be some stuff there for me when I move back North this year.

Enjoy the cold...........snow................ice..............Ever try Chestnut Ridge Tobaggan run? You may need to get permission.

Sven

 

[Zip960]

I live very close to Destin and just got a Beach Hunter ID 300. What beaches would you recommend starting? Crab Trap? Thanks

 

[Jackalope]

Just finished the maiden voyage of my BHID 300 on the beaches at Galveston. First, I have to say that the sand there is very fine and cakes up like clay. Could not get my F-75 to ground balance at all neither on the wet or dry sand. My sense is that those beaches are heavy in salt or magnetite or both. We have heavy mineralization here in Wyoming but the F-75 always GB's either FASTGRAB or MANUAL.

IKE did a real job on those beaches and by just looking at them it looks like maybe the lighter sand was washed away leaving the heavier material behind ...including small pieces of non-ferrous trash. What I'm leading up to is how the BHID300 performed in these types of conditions.

Hunted exclusively in All Metal and used the GOBBLE - GOBBLE super tune always. Noticed with the 12" coil that there appeared to be some sort of surface tension between the coil and the wet sand allowing the coil to sort of float effortlessly across the surface which made for good coverage with the least effort. I tried both chest and hip mounting the control unit and my preference is to hip mount it. During the minus tides I didn't spend too much time in the surf as more good targets were being located in patches on the wet sand.

BHID300 GBed easily and threshold tone stayed constant. As I'm getting older, all the digging tired me out pretty quick. Some of the targets were so deep I just left them. First couple of days I used my SS Scoop 6" Dia. and 11" deep. It's heavy and the weight helps to make easy work of getting 8 or 10 inches down on the first scoop. Dumping the sand kinda wore me out. Switched to my 12" blade spade type shovel cut down to a total length of 2 1/2 ft. and was pleased to find the going much easier. Also did not leave any more targets behind as I was sometimes down in the hole to near the top of the handle but I always got the target. Usually a penny or a dime. Sometimes the target would disappear but I would keep digging until it showed up. These targets were small pieces of foil, 1/2" X 1/2", or smaller.

Noticed on the White's DVD for the BHID300 that the All Metal tone was described as not being affected by the targets and was always the same. That's not what I found.
More than anything I learned the difference between Iron, Tabs and Iron bars/decomposed iron while in the All Metal mode. What's nice about the All Metal mode on the BHID300 is that you have the depth of All Metal along with the lights but you also have varying ways the All Metal tone is presented, depending on the type of target. I'm sure this is old news for the BHID300 users but as a new guy I had a great time calling targets before they were dug.

I did much better than I expected down there but I stayed away from the beach rebuilding. With the BHID300, the combination of excellent depth with the ability to cover lots of beach quickly is deadly. When I ran across an area that produced coins, I slowed way down and covered the surrounding area carefully. Paid off in a golden way. I'd recommend new folks take a look at the Golden Olde web site and study what's written on beach hunting.

My experience with the BHID300 was 100% positive. Lots of chatter about which VLF units are deeper but I'm thinking that this misses the point. Multi-freq units require very slow sweep which defeats the idea of covering a lot of beach. What good is lots of depth if your coil never gets over the target? P.I. units are dig everything units, so again, limited beach coverage. They all find good stuff. If you've got lots of time to cover the beach without any competition, maybe the slower units are for you. That's just not my style.

Ron

 

[Zip960]

Jackalope,

Thanks for posting the info in detail -- Was very useful! I'm going to try hipmounting the unit as recommended. I think I have the same kind of monster scoup you mentioned (see photo). Got the scoup from the person I bought the detector from. Will post results after I try it. Am interested in the tools and things you bring with you to do beach hunting. Can you describe your spade or post a photo? I just purchased my Beach Hunter 300 and can't wait to try it. I played around in my yard and found a Miller Lite bottle cap (Very Loud signal), a Bud Light can about 4 inch deep and a bunch of nails from my previous projects. Digging in the St Augustine grass, pin pointing was a cumbersome task. I saw a video of a Pinpointer in action and think I would like to try one. Speaking of grass, when it warms up, I wouldn't dare dig in it -- too many fire ants!!!

 

[therover]

I think in putting the 12 inch coil on this unit, Whites hit a home run. Like you stated, one of the best things about this unit is the all metal ID. Plus, when you get into really trashy/iron laden areas, you can switch to discrim to cut out lots of the garbage.

Since getting this unit, I have hunted in all metal about 90% of the time now. But there are times when discrim mode is fun to use.

Just remember, in all metal, always dig the slight change in threshold targets. These are the faint sounding, deep targets and they do not light up any of the lights. You will find some deep iron and bottle caps, but also DEEP quarters and nickles. And they will not be heard in discrim mode.

Thanks for the tip on using a shovel. I was thinking about getting one, maybe one with a 8 inch blade and like you, cutting down the handle. I would think that it would be much easier to work with. Sometimes my big scoops are wacking my back out ! Plus, I would imagine its easier to skim 2-3 inches of sand off with the shovel when you know the target is shallow.

Keep up the good work, be safe and have fun. I am sure the BHID300 is going to get you lots of great stuff.

JC

 

[Jackalope]

Hey J.C.:

Many thanks to you and Walt for the heads up on the BHID300. It's definitely a "goodun"

Forgot to mention the BHID300's susceptibility to being de-tuned by near-by metal. The 12" coil is EXTREMELY sensitive, so how you carry your scoop or if you have metal in your boots, can detune the machine and make it seem like it's behaving erratically or losing sensitivity. Putting your scoop or shovel on a leash and dragging it way back behind you is a good idea.

Here is my shovel I used at Galveston. Makes short work of recovering targets from dry or wet sand. In the water you just have to dig faster. Got it at one of the local hardware stores. Attached a cut down handle from another shovel. Make sure the cut down handle is stout because sometimes you will be leaning on it with all your weight to lift out the plug.

Ron

 

[ISLANDJOE]

Hey, don't give up. Some places on Lake Erie are high with iron ore. Check with one of your envioremental agencies and talk to them. Once you find out give White's a call and I have no doubt that they can help you set your machine.

Every state, country, county and island is different when it comes to ground type.

BOB