CTX Settings and Depth

I just got a CTX and am still playing around with it. I am going to do a bunch of air/ground tests this weekend but in the meantime...

What tests have you done with the CTX on various settings to see how they affect depth of certain objects? For example, I have heard GB can affect depth. Obviously sensitivity does. What about keeping the GPS on? Or settings like fast/deep? Saltwater? Wireless headset connection? etc....How does power usage is affect depth...etc. Does the batter using lithium vs the 8 battery pack affect depth...using waterproof connector vs wirless headset...etc. I guess I am wondering how the machine depth responds to any variable.

I only have 2 days on the machine so here are the settings I am playing with for now while I figure it all out on my beaches in NC:

Pattern: Eliminate 27FE down. I believe this means I set it for iron vs not iron.
Response: pitch hold
Recovery Deep
Low Trash
Seawater (on/off)...I have found I needed it in a few places
Pinpoint - sizing
GPS on
Tone ID: combined
Sens - Auto+3...going to really start playing with manual

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Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2016 06:37PM by adamBomb.

Good luck with your test.

But overall,,,IMO you are wasting your time.

An old test garden will give good results,,,a newer one won't.

For max depth,,run higher manual sensitivity,,,but a person new to the detector may find this at first to be a nuance.

You will get iron false . tones,,,and you'll eventually with time be better able to identify these.

Manual sens of 26 or higher will generally get your best depth.

Also,,what I have found,,,smaller lower conductors,,,higher manual sens to get these kinds of targets,,,higher manual sens mandatory.

My advice,,,get out and get busy hunting with it.

Maybe vecen a good idea to go to some places where there is some clad to to get the feel.

Depth meter on isolated coin sized targets,,,about as accurate as any detector I've run.

I would stay away from Manual GB,,,you can always play with it later.

The combined mode,,,this is where you will experience the best performance when it comes to separation in and around nails.

Keys to proper use age,,,keep coil as low as possible,,,lesser air gap the better.
Not too fast on the sweep.
Let the detectors stability,,let this drive your sweep somewhat.

Watch the screen,,,but always let audio drive your decison to site.

If you decide to cherry pick based maybe on what you see when air testing coins,,and see their ID,,,,be careful here,,,good coins mad of copper and silver can and will at times read somewhat lower conductive wise.

GPS,,backlight eat up battery juice,,if you don't need them don't use.

A not so hard unit to hunt with--- learning the falses,, you learn these,,,,you are off to the races.

Good luck.

You have a very good unit,,although a bit heavy.

I like mine and use it occassioanly depending on my mood and sites in question.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2016 07:24PM by tnsharpshooter.

I would run it with the GPS Off because whether you use the one on your Cell or Tablet it will eat your batteries, A GPS can eat between 40 to 60% of the battery life, Ok

good luck

John.

Those settings are pretty much what I use at the beach.
I like manual for depth and feel, but auto sens is a lot quieter in the swash or when the beach is infested with remnants from fires.

The only pattern I use is a little iron blocked out.
And smooth tones.

I prefer to hunt with the Excal, it has a much nicer swing and I like the simplicity of the All Metal hunt.
But the CTX has depth and ID where it counts,... where the ground is nasty and the old targets are.

HH
Johnb

I have been using the CTX since it first came out. My advice is to use heavy discrimination until you get a feel for tthe machine. Also, you may want to use sensitivity at auto +2. Spend time learning pinpointing and getting a feel for the machine.

Quote

Manual sens of 26 or higher will generally get your best depth.

Started practicing with manual sens today. I was able to get it to 23/24 on the beach I was at, which was about 2-3 above Auto+3 and still keep it very stable with no falsing. At 25 it started to false like crazy. I think it will do better at some of my other beaches, the one I was at today has a bit more mineralization.

Quote

although a bit heavy.

Compared to my CZ/Excal this feels great. Even with the 17'' coil. I am using ear buds instead of headphones and I think thats making a huge difference in comfort because the machine is probably about as heavy as my others.

Quote

A GPS can eat between 40 to 60% of the battery life

will keep it off since i dont really need it yet. going to learn the rest of the machine before i start worrying about the gps features.

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Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

adamBomb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Manual sens of 26 or higher will generally get
> your best depth.
>
> Started practicing with manual sens today. I was
> able to get it to 23/24 on the beach I was at,
> which was about 2-3 above Auto+3 and still keep it
> very stable with no falsing. At 25 it started to
> false like crazy. I think it will do better at
> some of my other beaches, the one I was at today
> has a bit more mineralization.
>
> although a bit heavy.
>
> Compared to my CZ/Excal this feels great. Even
> with the 17'' coil. I am using ear buds instead of
> headphones and I think thats making a huge
> difference in comfort because the machine is
> probably about as heavy as my others.
>
> A GPS can eat between 40 to 60% of the battery
> life
>
> will keep it off since i dont really need it yet.
> going to learn the rest of the machine before i
> start worrying about the gps features.


Sounds like you are progressing.

Thanks for sharing.

Haven't used your model but from using all the other Explorer units..sens as high as you can while keeping stable unit and low disc.will bring more depth...
Rome wasn't built in a day a expect a learning period which varies depending on the operators abilities......

Here is the pattern I created for the wetsand, any suggestions? I also have the default and modified default beach settings from Andy's book but I dont see why I would use them vs this. I guess I dont want to miss something good. I am an iron vs no iron digger. On the dry sand I am using the High Trash default mode that came with the machine because the dry sand is so trashy..anyone else doing that?



_________________________________

Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2016 06:06PM by adamBomb.

You want to leave the left side open,... that's where small stainless steel and small Pt comes in.

Take a small shard of iron and just disc that,... dig the rest on the wet beach :-)

HH
Johnb

Do you happen to have Andy's book on the CTX?

If you don't, I will send you my copy of it. I don't have a CTX and it's not doing me any good. I will send it to you for free as a celebration of Kemper being banned from the forum. lol

Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do you happen to have Andy's book on the CTX?
>
> If you don't, I will send you my copy of it. I
> don't have a CTX and it's not doing me any good.
> I will send it to you for free as a celebration of
> Kemper being banned from the forum. lol

Top Man, Your a Keeper.

John.

Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do you happen to have Andy's book on the CTX?
>
> If you don't, I will send you my copy of it. I
> don't have a CTX and it's not doing me any good.
> I will send it to you for free as a celebration of
> Kemper being banned from the forum. lol


That is awesome but i got a copy with my ctx maybe someone else here could benefit from it, it has been very helpful

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Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

You might want to check Seawater ON, but like everything else, its good to experiment on each site. As manual sens as the site will allow for your settings too.

If I feel the need to go Hi Trash on a beach, I'd use some more discrimination but that's me and everyone has a different tolerance level.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2016 11:56PM by Champ Ferguson.

Small gold jewelry will usually have a very low conductive value. And such jewelry will have a very high ferrous reading when it’s near or at maximum detection depth in the wet sand. Any discrimination on such small, very low conductive targets near maximum detection depth (for its size) may be missed.
Quite a bit of the tiny gold jewelry parts that I’ve detected have had a conductive value less than 05, and a ferrous value in the 30s.
So far, there has been very few iron targets with such low conductive values. Stainless steel is the most prominent, but iron that has nearly completely rusted away by salt water (rust balls) can also have a very low conductive value.

Leaving part of the left side of your discrimination pattern open is a good idea, if you want to increase the possibility of detecting small gold jewelry near or at maximum detection depth. Personally, at the beaches that I hunt, I leave the conductivity values 1 to around 30 open, but I have some experience at differentiating low conductive iron targets (conductivity 10 up to the mid 30s) by sweeping in different directions and by ear.

Here’s another very important factor when beach hunting with the E-trac or CTX. They can register targets that is either too small or too deep for the detector to identify. Even some mineralized rocks will register. If you use a high noise cancel number and manual discrimination in the 20s, such targets will give you a target ID value of 01-50. Even a deep target that you clearly detected will read 01-50 if you excavate much of the sand above the target. To avoid detecting very tiny pieces of non-ferrous metal near the surface, or targets that are too deep for the detector to identify, it is necessary to discriminate out 01-50.

Noise cancel #11 appears to be the most sensitive to very small targets, including small gold jewelry, but will register a lot of tiny non-ferrous targets that are too small for the detector to ID. If your beach is loaded with tiny pieces non-ferrous junk metals and your hunting with a manual sensitivity in the mid to upper 20s with noise cancel #11, it may be necessary to discriminate out not only 01-50, but maybe the entire conductivity 50 line.

Auto sensitivity is a very good learning tool when the E-trac or CTX is your 1st detector, but the sooner you get used to manual sensitivity, the better. Auto sensitivity can detect deep coins that are lying flat in clean soil, but can easily miss very small targets, very deep targets, and coins on edge. One very useful tool of auto sensitivity is it’s “suggested sensitivity” reading while detecting in manual sensitivity. It gives you an idea of ground conditions. If you’re detecting in manual sensitivity, and the auto sensitivity panel “suggested sensitivity” is reading very low, then the ground is adversely affecting the detector’s ability to detect deep targets, and maybe ground balancing is needed. But if the detector’s auto suggested level is reading in the 20s, then ground conditions are pretty good and the detector should be able to detect deep targets.

The E-trac and the CTX are both very good detectors, but it will take time to learn how to use them to their fullest potential under various ground conditions.

Detecting since Feb, 2010
E-trac with 18"x15" SEF, 13" Ultimate coil, Pro coil, Minelab 8" coil, 4.5"x7" SEF, Sunray target probe
CTX3030 with 17"x13" DD coil, 11" DD coil

Thanks for the info. I am getting much more comfortable with the manual sensitivity. I dont see myself going back to auto...on the beach at least. Still playing with other settings to see what I like best.

_________________________________

Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

adamBomb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for the info. I am getting much more
> comfortable with the manual sensitivity. I dont
> see myself going back to auto...on the beach at
> least. Still playing with other settings to see
> what I like best.


Again,,sounds like progress.

Some thing you may try.

Build you a beach program,,,and set ip up backwards tone wise using combined mode,,,meaning have lower conductors give the high tone,,and the higher conductors give the low tone.

Gold jewelry will sing out more.

Cheers.

tnsharpshooter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> adamBomb Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Thanks for the info. I am getting much more
> > comfortable with the manual sensitivity. I dont
> > see myself going back to auto...on the beach at
> > least. Still playing with other settings to see
> > what I like best.
>
>
> Again,,sounds like progress.
>
> Some thing you may try.
>
> Build you a beach program,,,and set ip up
> backwards tone wise using combined mode,,,meaning
> have lower conductors give the high tone,,and the
> higher conductors give the low tone.
>
> Gold jewelry will sing out more.
>
> Cheers.

This is interesting. I was thinking of doing this. Right now I have the pattern above and all metal. I am using combined. The highest pitch is the coins so my gold would be like 300 or 600. With pennies at 900 and dimes/quarters at 1200. Then I have the bottom set at 75.

I am also still debating which pinpoint mode I like better. Im using the 17'' coil and on shallow targets its simple but deep targets its quite a chore...

_________________________________

Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC