New beach MD - Heres my shortlist, pls help me choose...

[OD_hunt]

New beach MD - Here's my shortlist, pls help me choose...

Hi everyone

I'm 'semi' new to MD and this is my first forum joined. I bough a machine a few years back for R400 ($40) from a guy who said it didn't work. Well new batteries made it work, and me smile! It was a cheapie with one Sens knob and volume only. Anyway it's shot now and maybe I'll repair it for fun some day.

More importantly, I'd like to get a new machine. I live in South Africa and love spending time on surrounding coaslines so I would like to get a beach machine. Diving's not a serious issue, although I'm very interested to get into the water with it eventually. (Keen cray and spearo diver) Am I right in saying my main concern would be the minerals in the beach sand. I remember digging loads of it with my cheapie detector to no avail! Very dicouraging, especially if the target dissappears completely after you've spread the high concentration mineral patch wide open looking for 'gold!' You check again and it's gone! The laughs....

Another requirement would be using it successfully on dry land. I'm spending a year or so in India and it's ideal here as not many people are detecting. So, after all that I've spent 2 unbiased days looking around and eventually made a SUPER comparison spreadsheet to help me choose. I kinda narrowed it down to about 5 MD's. Being human after all that I still want to ask you guys, and ladies, what you think of my selection, considering the requirements...

Whites Beach Hunter ID 300
Whites MXT
Whites MXT 300
Whites M6
Minelab Excalibur II
Minelab Quattro

The BHID300 (Or BHID if I can't find the 300) is my favorite so far. Am I excluding any good buys I should be considering? Any comments?

Thanks for reading and hope to hear from you soon.
Regards
OD

 

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[thorny196]

Re: New beach MD - Here's my shortlist, pls help me choose...

OD: I just got a Beach Hunter 300 ID I'm still learning it! First off its only rated for 25 ft underwater so I would say its not a dive unit. It is a VLF and works very nice on the dry sand so I think it would work good on land and since its got ground balance function that should only help. When the entire unit is submerged underwater (including the elex enclosure) its pretty stable but in the surf it takes a while to get use to it. When the red light comes on I would not dig its very good at picking out bobby pins and other steel and iron objects. The coil is humongous and works really good at covering allot of ground but also takes a little time in pin pointing. I have no experience with the other detectors on your list ! I hope this helps.. R/Mike

 

[OD_hunt]

Re: New beach MD - Here's my shortlist, pls help me choose...

Thanks Mike.
I hope to hear a few more testimonials, but there's many to be found out there. Choosing is a nightmare for me... But as I say, the BHID300's looking good. Where, and for how much did you get yours? Most suppliers / second hand units are in the US and shipping to South Africa seems to be a problem for many of them, especially private sellers. Not that you really see the BHID300 for sale second hand yet...

Good luck with learning yours, and let me know where you will (possibly) be posting pics of your finds.
OD

 

[thorny196]

Re: New beach MD - Here's my shortlist, pls help me choose...

OD: sent you a PM

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Re: New beach MD - Here's my shortlist, pls help me choose...

Only 2 detectors listed are water detectors, the Beach Hunter 300 and the Excal.

The Beach Hunter 300 is rated max 25 feet, so diving deeper then 20 feet will be a risk.
It is a good water and land detector.
I do not believe it will tell you when a gold ring is sitting on a piece of iron.
300 uses 2 frequencies. Whites pays royalties to Minelab for this feature.
300 uses 12" concentric coil, width of signal shrinks as it goes deeper.
Requires ground balancing

Minelab Excalibur II is rated 220 feet.
It is also an excellent water and land detector.
It nulls on iron, it will tell you if you have a gold ring sitting on a piece of iron nail. This is a big feature on the Excal.
The Excal uses 17 frequencies.
The Excal uses 10" dd coil, signal is width of the coil all the way down, so you have more coverage and don't need to overlap your sweep as much.
Requires no ground balancing.

 

[OD_hunt]

Re: New beach MD - Here's my shortlist, pls help me choose...

Thanks Treasure Hunter.
You seem convinced I've heard similar viewpoints from a few people so far, so I have made my mind up on the Excal 1000. Well this is because I can get it new for a good price compared to a new Excal II. And of course due to it's features, mainly the electronic multi frequence capabilities. I believe there's not much difference between the old and new Excals so it was an obvious choice.

Thanks for the input guys, it's always good to hear 'real' reviews based on experience. I'm super exited about my new baby coming...

Cheers
OD