HEY MINELAB, if you are listening -- a humble request...

I would like to respectfully request something that I am sure has been requested before...

The option, on a CTX 3030, of running 50-tone conductive -- i.e., the full set of conductive tones -- in "combined" mode. Right now, of course, we can only choose four "non-ferrous" bins of tone, above the ferrous bin, in combined mode. Combined mode is such a GREAT idea -- but in my strong opinion it is HINDERED, unnecessarily, by forcing 50 possible conductive ID numbers into only four bins. I have ALWAYS hunted my Explorers in full multi-tone, and would LOVE the ability to run a "combined/full multi-tone" mode on the CTX. Could you PLEASE ask the engineers/software designers to place that option into a future CTX "software update?" I can't imagine it's any more than just some simple software coding to permit that option...

Thanks for considering --

Steve



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2017 05:08AM by steveg.

The audio settings on the CTX are what I consider it's greatest feature. Adding to them can only make them better. I would set it up and I really didn't have to look at the screen. If Minelab is going to continue with the CTX in the lineup an update would be a nice gift to those that love it. And judging by your favorite detector threads on the forums there are quite a few out there that do. If it was lighter I would still have one. A torn bicep a year ago didn't help things. I can never go back. In fact the Impact I have will be going up on the classifieds.

Goodmore --

Understood. Torn bicep DOES NOT help (had a friend who tore his; took him quite awhile to recover). Sounds like the Equinox might be just what the doctor ordered, for you...

Steve

Yeah I would like to see the ability in combined to be able to split the ferrous bin up at least into two bins .

right now still best way to unmask with CTX is to use conductive and ignore high tones like on the other fbs units on depleted sites

if we could break that ferrous bin up some left to right while in combines it would be so much better at unmasking using that mode.


Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Yeah I always thought the CTX was a Beast to swing No matter how well balanced.
I think Etrac is a lot easier especially with the Sunray X-8 Coil. And I have had shoulder issues most My Life.

I must be not understanding what you are trying to say.

Are you wanting to be able to assign 50 tone break points/bins? Wouldn't that be the same as 50 conductive tones anyway? Each segment would already have it's own tone/bin.

The beauty of 4 bins in combined was being able to spread out the range of the bins and hunt with an open screen, relying on audio only. I always set mine up with a low tone for foil range, nickel range with high tone and everything from about 26 on up to high tone too. I dug more trash but also got more surprise finds in there. I run my Fe line really low too, around 32 to 33.

Daniel --

No, it wouldn't be the same as 50 conductive -- because if you want to run open screen (no disc) in 50 conductive, you will hear all the nails ringing up as high tones (due to the nails' high conductive number). And thus, you can't differentiate a high-tone coin from a high-tone nail, when running an open screen -- you are literally barraged, audibly, with high tones. (I say "can't", though some claim they "can" -- that they can tell a high-toning coin from a high-toning nail...but if they can, then they have an otherworldly ability that I simply do not possess). My point is, IF you want to run 50 conductive tones, and you are trying to dig silver/copper, you essentially CAN'T run open screen...you are for all intents and purposes FORCED to run with enough disc. to knock out the nails (otherwise, you are bombarded with high tones and it's essentially unmanageable, for a coin hunter).

Now, if you are relic hunting, and are willing to either "skip" coins (or have already cleaned out the coins on prior hunts), you CAN do what Keith said -- run 50 conductive, open screen, BUT simply ignore all high tones (nails and coins)...and then just focus on "unmasking" mid or low tones amongst all the background high-toning "noise." I can see the value in that -- but, you HAVE to be willing to skip/ignore any silver or copper coin-type tone. But as a coin hunter, who doesn't WANT to "ignore coins," but DOES want to run with no disc./open screen, essentially your only choice is combined...but which (as you know) allows ONLY 4 tones above your FE line.

BUT -- IF -- you could run combined (and set your FE bin so as to force nails to fall into your low-tone FE bin as normal), but then run with the full 50 CO tones for all your targets above wherever you set your FE break, then you'd have the "best of both worlds" in my opinion. You could run open screen/no disc (hearing your nails as low tones), and then at the same time, you could then utilize all the nuance that is offered to your ears/brain by running the full 50-tone conductive audio -- without having to deal with a barrage of high-toning nails.

I am so used to listening to multi-tone output from FBS machines; I really feel that you get the most "feel" for what's under your coil, when you can listen to all the nuance that is available when you have each conductive number assigned it's own tone. Over time, you then don't even have to look at your screen; your brain memorizes what tone represents a "13" conductive (likely nickel), what tone represents a "46" conductive (likely quarter), etc.; you also learn all the "nuances" that can be gleaned by hearing all 50 tones. I think you are really, really losing important information if you take 50 CO ID numbers and "dumb it down" by forcing all your conductive numbers into only four tone options.

Having said that, I CAN see why, at times, to "cherry pick," you might want to hunt with only four conductive tone bins -- say a "nickel" bin, an "Indian head and wheat" bin, a "silver/clad" bin...I get that. But, I want the option to run combined, and run all 50 tones above the FE line. That way, instead of lumping, say, CO ID numbers 38-50 into one bin/one tone, I could instead hear EACH individual tone in that "38-50" conductive bin...I'd get to hear all 13 tones contained within 38-50 ID range, instead of just one single tone for all...

Steve


Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I must be not understanding what you are trying to
> say.
>
> Are you wanting to be able to assign 50 tone break
> points/bins? Wouldn't that be the same as 50 cond
> uctive tones anyway? Each segment would already h
> ave it's own tone/bin.
>
> The beauty of 4 bins in combined was being able to
> spread out the range of the bins and hunt with an
> open screen, relying on audio only. I always set
> mine up with a low tone for foil range, nickel ran
> ge with high tone and everything from about 26 on
> up to high tone too. I dug more trash but also go
> t more surprise finds in there. I run my Fe line
> really low too, around 32 to 33.

Ahh I see what you are saying now. I never trusted the accuracy of the ID to be great enough to rely on the numbers or the 50 tone. I've dug too many silver and copper coins that read far away from where they are supposed to read. 4 combined was plenty for me. Heck, I run the eTrac in 4 Conductive tone mode now.

If you want to really find some low conductors in iron with a CTX you run Conduct 50 tones and dig the blubs..the low sounds the awful sounds...nails and iron in that mode ring like crazy high tone.

this will best used on a iron littered site with smallest coil you have already cleaned out of high tones and mid tones with ferrous mode wide open screen or combined mode with Fe line at 32 for nails.

What you do now is run the conductive mode and all the high Ringing you just ignore and concentrate on the blubs.. these are the lowest of non ferrous conductors..And can be real eye openers.

That's why on the CtX in combined I wish it had a way to assign tones in the iron bin when in Combined...I could slide the break over from left to center inside the iron bin when set at 32 and hear the things that come up over in the bottom left.

the trick to the FBS units is never to let the machine Null a target..the FBS is slow to recover and if you use a pattern or block out iron then you have a nulling and it takes a second to recover..yet with rolling audio of open screens the way a FBS blends you can pick out intermingles.

Another solution for the CTX would be to instead of say when you block something would be to assign blocked out numbers say a iron tone ..then you could run conductive open screen and block iron with it becoming a tone instead of nulling.Shouldn't be hard in a update just have a menu option that says audible disc on or off..then it can either null the blocked region or assign it a tone lower than the lowest tone 50 tone Conduct has already.

the Conductive mode is the most powerful mode on the FBS units.

Steve

You can run wide open Conductive screen on FBS units but its hard on a CTX.. the tone variability is not really there( close but not quite) in the top end tones like on other FBS units...and then I only use the conductive wide open screen on less polluted sites wihtt he older FBS units. you can after time learn a flurry coin ring from a warbly nail ring...But it's tough..you have to rely on deep flutey modulated hits...the deep sounds..the nails will be close but they will have warble to them..deep ones will fool you more than surface..No way Id run Conduct in heavy iron without some sort of disc.

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Quite a few good recommendations here.

I would like to see if not on the CTX, but maybe another fbs type future detector to have capability to just turn iron audio tonally off.
Let it report so as not to bind up the processing, but report nothing tonally.

This too should be applied really to any area (screen wise) as far as a user not wanting to hear tone on certain conductive felt objects.

So disc in an audio sense ( no audio).

Like White's V3i allows by accepting all vdis, yet turn them off (audio wise)- 0 hz.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2017 12:51AM by Sod-buster.

Sod-buster -- accepting but "turning off," tonally, makes sense. That's different than rejecting with disc., and I understand the point you are making.

Keith -- even with old FBS, I was never able to run conductive, open screen. Just WAY too much "nails that sound too much like a coin" for me to sort through. MANY nails, yes, you can tell a difference. But -- for me anyway -- there were WAY too many that sound too much like a coin, and I would get "fatigued and frustrated" trying to figure out the difference...

I could TOTALLY SEE doing it, if I was IGNORING all high tones, and just listening for the lower-tone blurbs, as you were saying. But if I was also wanting to hear coins? No WAY could I hunt like that.

BUT -- that's the beauty of a combined mode with 50 tones. I could run NO disc, set my FE bin however I wanted, and then run full conductive tones above the bin, and could then relic hunt, unmask, coin hunt, whatever I wanted to do...

Steve

I agree with the older FBS running full screen can really fry your brain after a few hours. BUT, i think the CTX with the bins really makes a difference to me. Not quite so brain numbing. I do wished i had 1 or two more bins to play with. When you say cond mode is the greatest..... that maybe why they dropped Ferr and went to a single digit on the EQ.... less processing. BUT, IMO the smartscreen is one of FBS BEST features. It paints such a good picture.....never did like the jumping digit screens. People like their big coils..... thats a lot of material to process especially in iron.... where even a staple makes a difference. I suspect if there is any improvements from the EQ like the way it processes a signal it will be used in the Xcal and CTX.

I would never want to NOT HEAR the iron ..I want to know as much about what I'm rejecting as what I'm accepting..

Yeah Steve the Combined is a great feature...Seems the equinox will be set up like a Conventional detector no 2D..More like the Safari..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Daniel --

I totally agree with you about "trusting the accuracy" of the ID to be great enough to "rely on." BUT -- there are clues (IMO) that one learns, about how a desired target "behaves" when it is deep, or in the proximity of junk, or in bad soil, etc., that can be gleaned from the numbers and the tones, that you lose when you lump 50 CO numbers into just a few "bins" of tone. I'm not at all suggesting for a coin hunter to dig only "12-46" signals on the CTX; what I AM saying is, that 12-46 quarter often behaves in certain ways when deep, or when close to a pull tab, or whatever. And to me, the nuances of the bouncing of the ID/tones can offer intelligible information to an experienced hunter, which is lost when you lump large numbers of CO values into one tone bin...

Steve

Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ahh I see what you are saying now. I never truste
> d the accuracy of the ID to be great enough to rel
> y on the numbers or the 50 tone. I've dug too man
> y silver and copper coins that read far away from
> where they are supposed to read. 4 combined was p
> lenty for me. Heck, I run the eTrac in 4 Conducti
> ve tone mode now.