Well, I took my BHID 300 to the NJ beach today. I have it mounted on the An@## shaft ( you know, the nice blue one that color coordinates well with the yellow BHID). Here are my observations based on 2 beaches I and several friends hunted. To give you an idea how the beach was, there were targets everywhere, very little trash. An ideal day to learn the detector.
- The balance with the straight shaft is very good. I did not have any arm fatigue after 4 hours of hunting, which is good for me since I start feeling it after awhile with some of my other detectors. The control box was mounted under my forearm as opposed to behind my arm ( in the higher position). It's better balanced and feels lighter in the higher position, but since this was my first time using it, the controls and lights are easier to adjust and see in the lower position.
- Ground balancing was very easy. I GB'd slightly positive, and the GB control was close to the middle of the dial. When re-ground balancing, the GB knob was adjusted very, very slightly.
- The threshold was very stable for the most part, but it did occasionally rise and get louder as I was hunting, but hitting the reset put it back to the faint hum. There was very little falsing in both the wet sand and water. It did false every so often going into the suds when a wave would hit the coil. Today I was hunting the wet sand and suds for the most part. Also, I did tax the BHID 300 on the sensitivity side, and was running high most of the day. When running on the preset, the BHID hummed away without any faults.
- Running in the discriminate mode, I was hitting targets easily 10 inches when applicable, but most of the targets today where in the 5-6 inch range. Pinpointing was dead on, and swinging the coil with quick, short bursts made it very easy to accurately determine where the target was, and everything was in the first or second scoop, depending on depth. Running in all metal, it was easy to swing fast and still nab targets, and with the lights, its' great to know the target ID. I did dig 3 iron targets just to make sure. Every one had illuminated the red light. After that, I did not dig any target that lit up the red light. What was interesting was, almost all of the corroded zinc pennies I dug had a high tone/ mid tone bounce. The copper pennies and new, none corroded zincs hit the high tone. The nickles and pull tabs/foil/aluminum were all mid tone only sounds...no bounces.
- 2 beaches were hit today. The first a very clean beach with lots of targets ( 90% of them found there). The other an iron laiden beach in the fall/winter, but tons of people there today, but on both beaches the BHID ground balanced fine and ran very smooth.
- The other guys with me were running a Sov GT,M6 and DFX. If the Sov got within 20 feet of me, the BHID went crazy. If the DFX got close, there was a pulsing sound to the threshold. Needless to say, I stayed farther away.
Total take of the day..1 silver ring (nice high tone), 26 quarters, 16 dimes, 2 nickels, 2 wheat pennies and tons of zincs ( not shown).
Bottom line...I love this machine so far. It is VERY easy to use, the tones are very distinquishable, I love the all metal ID capability and the pin pointing is dead on. I did not try the advanced method of re-ground balancing and running the sensitivity wide open in all metal ( I assume this is called the Gobble Gobble method ?! HA !) since I wanted to run in discrim most of the day to learn the detector. I cannot determine depth capabilities yet since most all targets were shallow, but did dig a 10-11 inch quarter and a very, very deep 1/2 crushed can bottom ( because it was giving the nice mid tone).
I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK !!!!!
JC
- The balance with the straight shaft is very good. I did not have any arm fatigue after 4 hours of hunting, which is good for me since I start feeling it after awhile with some of my other detectors. The control box was mounted under my forearm as opposed to behind my arm ( in the higher position). It's better balanced and feels lighter in the higher position, but since this was my first time using it, the controls and lights are easier to adjust and see in the lower position.
- Ground balancing was very easy. I GB'd slightly positive, and the GB control was close to the middle of the dial. When re-ground balancing, the GB knob was adjusted very, very slightly.
- The threshold was very stable for the most part, but it did occasionally rise and get louder as I was hunting, but hitting the reset put it back to the faint hum. There was very little falsing in both the wet sand and water. It did false every so often going into the suds when a wave would hit the coil. Today I was hunting the wet sand and suds for the most part. Also, I did tax the BHID 300 on the sensitivity side, and was running high most of the day. When running on the preset, the BHID hummed away without any faults.
- Running in the discriminate mode, I was hitting targets easily 10 inches when applicable, but most of the targets today where in the 5-6 inch range. Pinpointing was dead on, and swinging the coil with quick, short bursts made it very easy to accurately determine where the target was, and everything was in the first or second scoop, depending on depth. Running in all metal, it was easy to swing fast and still nab targets, and with the lights, its' great to know the target ID. I did dig 3 iron targets just to make sure. Every one had illuminated the red light. After that, I did not dig any target that lit up the red light. What was interesting was, almost all of the corroded zinc pennies I dug had a high tone/ mid tone bounce. The copper pennies and new, none corroded zincs hit the high tone. The nickles and pull tabs/foil/aluminum were all mid tone only sounds...no bounces.
- 2 beaches were hit today. The first a very clean beach with lots of targets ( 90% of them found there). The other an iron laiden beach in the fall/winter, but tons of people there today, but on both beaches the BHID ground balanced fine and ran very smooth.
- The other guys with me were running a Sov GT,M6 and DFX. If the Sov got within 20 feet of me, the BHID went crazy. If the DFX got close, there was a pulsing sound to the threshold. Needless to say, I stayed farther away.
Total take of the day..1 silver ring (nice high tone), 26 quarters, 16 dimes, 2 nickels, 2 wheat pennies and tons of zincs ( not shown).
Bottom line...I love this machine so far. It is VERY easy to use, the tones are very distinquishable, I love the all metal ID capability and the pin pointing is dead on. I did not try the advanced method of re-ground balancing and running the sensitivity wide open in all metal ( I assume this is called the Gobble Gobble method ?! HA !) since I wanted to run in discrim most of the day to learn the detector. I cannot determine depth capabilities yet since most all targets were shallow, but did dig a 10-11 inch quarter and a very, very deep 1/2 crushed can bottom ( because it was giving the nice mid tone).
I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK !!!!!
JC