I know both of these machines well. First off the ID is not a bad machine for the dry sand at a saltwater beach, but can become unstable in the waves at some locations due to black sand and salt together. The ID is only water proof to 20 foot, so it's not for diving. The ID needs to be ground balanced, Excel does not. ID comes with a floating coil which is ok on dry land but really is difficult to work in the water. (read Sucks) You can order a weighted coil for it however.
The Excal is much deeper and best of all, it ignores iron so it doesn't need to be ground balanced and it doesn't discriminate out the iron, it ignores it. This means it will sound off on a gold ring UNDER a nail while a BHID will null out and you won't hear the ring. It is waterproof to 250 feet and the coil is weighted so it doesn't pop to the surface. Rechargeable battery pack and it is very good on power use too. Very simple to operate even with 17 different frequencies to properly id the target. If it makes a noise, I dig it. Mine has paid for itself many times over an it is my "Go To Detector."
Tesoro does make a great water detector in the Tiger Shark. It is waterproof to 200 feet, you may change coils yourself, and it has the Lifetime Warranty. Saltwater mode switch for fresh or saltwater or wet sand use round out this detector. This is one sweet detector for us to use in the water.
I know both of these machines well. First off the ID is not a bad machine for the dry sand at a saltwater beach, but can become unstable in the waves at some locations due to black sand and salt together. The ID is only water proof to 20 foot, so it's not for diving. The ID needs to be ground balanced, Excel does not. ID comes with a floating coil which is ok on dry land but really is difficult to work in the water. (read Sucks) You can order a weighted coil for it however.
The Excal is much deeper and best of all, it ignores iron so it doesn't need to be ground balanced and it doesn't discriminate out the iron, it ignores it. This means it will sound off on a gold ring UNDER a nail while a BHID will null out and you won't hear the ring. It is waterproof to 250 feet and the coil is weighted so it doesn't pop to the surface. Rechargeable battery pack and it is very good on power use too. Very simple to operate even with 17 different frequencies to properly id the target. If it makes a noise, I dig it. Mine has paid for itself many times over an it is my "Go To Detector."
Tesoro does make a great water detector in the Tiger Shark. It is waterproof to 200 feet, you may change coils yourself, and it has the Lifetime Warranty. Saltwater mode switch for fresh or saltwater or wet sand use round out this detector. This is one sweet detector for us to use in the water.
This reply is just for the record as folks use google to check these threads for years. the bh id is an interesting bird, and there's a lot more to it than is obvious at first. I had heard of its faults, but bought one because i'm too cheap to buy an excal, and i was a little afraid of the excal because most of the guys I know who use 'em keep a stable of 'em because one or more of 'em is usually on the fritz. I had a couple of sovereigns at different times, and without the meter, I had trouble distinguishing tones well enough to id stuff.
White's detectors are known for their ability to survive abuse like cockroaches, or B-17's. Even damaged, they keep on flying one way or another. Of course, if it doesn't detect well, survivablitiy would be worthless. The other day, I was on the wet sand in all metal mode, and got a fairly quiet signal that was too quiet to trigger the discriminate lights, and in discriminate mode it would not pick it up at all. I had to decide whether to dig or not, because it could have been a small iron rust flake, of which there were quite a few on this beach, and which had a tendency not to trigger the signal lights. I scooped, nothing. I kept scooping, and widening the hole as I deepened it, removing fallen sand as I went. I had a hole well over a foot deep...I'll be discrete as to how deep I think it was... before I pulled up the target...a nickel. I had the same experience about 3 months ago with a gold ring that gave me a solid signal. I had to keep scooping several times to reach it. I have a 12" scoop by the way. Each of these holes was deeper than the scoop.
It is also very sensitive to tiny pieces of metal, small aluminum or iron flakes like little nuggets give good signals. Tiny gold earrings, 1/3 of a pennyweight, signal loudly.
The floating coil,,,the old boogie man. That really put me off at first. Then I found a simple trick that almost entirely eliminated that as a factor in using the BH. I reversed the coil, which puts it closer to my body. It also prevents the coil from flipping up in surf. Simple mechanics makes the lift insignificant in this configuration, as your body is more nearly right over the coil.
About Iron. Let's say a gold ring is under a nail. First off...I run the BH in saltwater in All Metal, all the time, because it goes deeper in all metal than in discriminate. (That's not the case with my land detector, the white's eagle spectrum.) In all metal it will certainly not null out on iron, it will give a read for the iron, most likely, the red light. It will also give a yellow light for the gold ring, so you will see both red and yellow lights.
The indicator lights are red for iron, yellow for mid frequency like foil, gold and aluminum, green for high frequency like coins, some screwcaps, etc.
A multiple signal reading could be a bottle cap...or a ring under a nail. The behavior of the read will usually indicate what it is, and you become familiar with the various types of sounds and combinations of sounds and lights. the bottle cap bounces around, or it often gives a peculiar drawn out moaning sort of read. You can flip the switch to discriminate, and a bottle cap will give a clipped signal or no signal - most of the time. However, if i have any doubt, i dig anyway, because it could be a ring and a nail together. By the way, some of my friends with excals dig a lot of bottle caps, because bottle caps can give quite convincing coin signals on the excal. Anyway, if I get a red signal, and no yellow signal, I don't dig. I can be quite certain that its ferrous. I avoid digging a lot of ferrous trash that way.
Ground balance. There is effectively no ground balancing the BH in saltwater. Ground balance works fine on dry land, but in the saltwater it simply doesn't work as far as I can tell. The BH chatters in saltwater at higher sensitivities. You can reduce sensitivity and the chatter disappears, or you can just learn the difference between the sound that chatter makes and that a signal makes, which you do quite quickly. It's quiet on the wet sand, and you can put the sensitivity just about all the way up and the signal reaches down to about China, be prepared to dig in wet sand. If the excal is deeper in wet sand...well, god bless it, because that would be deep as hell.
i can say the bh is a very competent water machine for those who learn how to use it. And it's a monster on the wet sand. It's also a superb dry land detector, and in discriminate mode very useful in dry sand or grass parks. The sound of the signals in all metal, along with the lights indicating iron, gold, or silver range signals, can tell the operator with experience on this machine, pretty much precisely what's in the sand under the coil. All the same, I usually dig everything but a pure iron signal, just to be on the safe side.
You have to have a straight shaft for the excal or it will either kill you or drive you out of metal detecting.The guys who do the best with it, are the ones with deep pockets who have several of them. They always have one that works, and they absolutely have the utmost confidence in their ability to find gold and other valuables. Guys who don't have that much dough, or are too cheap to support several Excals in the style that they demand, end up staying at home a lot with their lone, cranky excal in the closet.
My two closest md buddies both use excals, they both have two of them, and one of them hasn't detected in months as neither machine is working, while the other one frequently resorts to his Tesoro Sand Shark because he needs a break from the physically very demanding excal.
Btw, I also have a sandshark which I use to take a break from the bhid. I think the bhid is easier to swing than the excal, but the sandshark is the sweetest little machine to use in the water. Too bad it doesn't discriminate.
The BHid is like a trusty bird dog. It may not have been the pick of the litter, but it's got a good nose, that is sometimes a great nose, and it keeps on dogging it no matter what you put it through. It's always ready and eager to go out with you. change the o-ring every couple of years, and that's about it.
For the guy with a modest budget who is only going to own one water detector that he hopes he will never have to spend more money on (other than a few bucks for 0rings), the bhid is a brilliant choice.
And should you ever have trouble, there is white's superb, friendly, fast and modestly priced repair service.
