Well went ahead and got me a Minelab CTX 3030 and I must say (5/18/2013 using 50 tone conductive to unmask in nail's VIDEO)

Hey Tommy thank's for the update..

I will let you know when it get's here...

Thank's again very generous..!!!

Kevin..The DEUS and the CTX...You might ought to get both! Best of both world's.....

The DEUS unmask very well..I dont have enough time on the CTX in iron to make any type of honest comparative reply....but what I saw today make's me scratch my head....

Small lead and brass at depth in iron....Target's with multiple iron nails in the same hole with some pewter and some lead and some small brass....would not of believed it if I had not seen it..at nice depth to boot...that's the nice thing the depth it get's in iron seems ahead of the DEUS....the DEUS might have it in the top first layer in unmasking but at depth the CTX at unmasking shows a different result...

And heres the real kicker...I ran it against a Explorer S.E. for a few hours...and the S.E. was digging deep iron and hot rocks as good target's... the CTX was not hearing the hotrocks and was I.D.ing the deep iron way better...

we were both running open screen wide open sens manual....

the trick to not diggin iron fasles with the CTX is let the ground track....serioulsy it will false on the first pass but on the repass the iron will grount ...not so on the Explorer...

also if I lock the Ground bal it hit's hot rocks just like the Explorer....Let it track and the hot rocks will start to hightone but before the coil crosses the center it tracks out and dissapears...AMAZING....

What I can tell is the explorer does not have a ground bal....I believe one of the minelab tester's said the explorer's uses a all the time tracking system ...well if they do it's not the same tpye as the CTX...I believe the Explorers are factory locked pre set ground bal...and the audio is whats removes ground noise but not hotrock's.....because when I lock the Ground on the CTX it behaves alot like an explorer...but when the tracking is working on the CTX and it combines with the audio removal of noise that is incorported in the FBS technology it does not hear hot rock's and see's through the hotrocks...

Just the technology of the ground system is worth the money for me at this point...it is the fastest ground system I have ever encountered...
The beauty of the less falsing with the tracking in iron and on mineral helps to hear legitimate target's quite easily that other machine struggle with...So far the machine has not tracked out a legitimate target, just mineral...

remember to uncheck the ground Bal enable box to activate ground tracking.....If you check it it will lock the balance point at last setting..and update to ground has to be done manually...

The CTX is proving to be the TOTAL PACKAGE for the lowest of conductors to the highest of conductor's....

Kevin I wil have more info in the next few day's..

at this point with all the setting's available to the machine like long, smooth, normal...fast recovery on off high trash on off...etc....ability to move tone break...super awesome ability to run combined ferrous/conductive at the same time ability to move tones to your hearing preferance...it really is the CADILLAC ....

Nothing else I know of technology wise is in the same leauge....

I believe the small coil will unlock on a level we have not seen on FBS till now with the proper setting's invoked...
The CTX is unbelievably stable wide open and very conveying...

You can set it up slower than a explorer or way faster!




Keith



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2013 07:04PM by Keith Southern.

Keith, PM sent.

Kevin, don't want to butt in.
Here's my 2 € cents about the CTX versus Deus in a coin hunting shootout.

Either units in an experienced hand/ear will find about just as much coins at the end of the day.
Here the catch, they will find different coins behind each other.

HH
Johnb

..... and that is a good (critical) point, John. As with the XP GMP with 9" DD coil vs F75SE with 5" DD coil: one unit (the GMP) would find many targets behind the other unit........ that the other unit would not see/detect. Then........... the other unit (F75SE) would find many targets behind the GMP........ whereby the GMP would not see/detect.

BUT............ in BOTH cases: the group of targets that the GMP could not detect (but the F75SE could)............................................ and the group of targets the F75SE could not detect (but the GMP could),,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,..................................,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, nearly all other metal detectors on the open market could not see any of the non-ferrous masked targets from BOTH groups.
In any case, both groups represent/present badly masked targets.
And to think: Most of the non-ferrous targets in the carpets of nails.......... still remain masked from any/every detector available on the market..... to date.
Head-to-head comparison testing can be somewhat difficult (with unsuspecting surprises/twists)..... due to scientific approach requirements; yet, is very important.

Cleaning a site from most findable non-ferrous items still require more than one machine. I have sifted the sites I have (except for the couple of new old homesites that are not in a notoriously historic area) with the Deus and would dread having to go back and do it all again, for a single missed cuff button or wheat penny. I suppose what i am saying...I will just use the F5 on the new homesites and hold on to the vast amount of cash necessary to acquire a CTX. For around 2 grand, I would want all of my hunted sites to be like new again......merely to justify the cost. For 2000 bux, I need to be AWED several times during a hunt even if the hunt is over previously hunted ground. I sold my second Etrac because I ran out of good old coin sites (fairgrounds etc etc). I just couldn't make the Etrac happen for me at old homesites that were built over old campsites. Simply too much falsing and subsequent digging. But when I was at a fairground where only the normal, occasional can slaw, gum wrapper is encountered, I generally would bring home one silver coin (rarely two) per hunt when using the Etrac in those areas. But when the Etrac was used (2 tone ferrous, 2 tone conductivity, etc) at the old historic sites carpeted with nails......it was a stain on the brain. But then,.....I am not an accomplished Etrac user.
In short: I feel where your coming from.

Kevin ole buddy, I think you and I are on the same page with these detectors. It just took you less time than it took me to figure it all out. I kept thinking I had to find the magic detector....and I'd buy, try, and sell...with every machine that came out and I would take them all to the same ole places thinking it was going to turn them all into like virgin sites again. Price was no object to obtain this illusion...heck I jumped on the Minelab GPX wagon for a while which is the deepest machine I've ever encountered. And it was just exactly like you said...all to go back to the same sites, and maybe find a crumbling button or a couple bullets that were out of reach of other detectors. In one case with the GPX, it was a breastplate that I found in a camp we had hunted hard for years....but was it so much as the GPX going deeper...or was it that it happened to be found in a stand of pine trees that they were cutting out, and that the entire time we had hunted the camp in the past, it was so thick you couldn't hardly move in it. Once they started cutting trees they opened it all up and allowed for being able to actually swing a coil.

There's a guy locally that has a Minelab XTerra 70. He has had it about 4-5 years now. In that 4-5 year time frame, he's dug more relics than all of us other local hunters combined in the same time frame. Why is that? Is it his machine? Well not exactly. He is a run and gun hunter...he hunts a lot of places and never gets hung up on the same site. Mostly because most of the sites he hunts, he don't have permission for and just goes. The rest of us get stuck in ruts and keep going back to the same sites hoping they will magically refill themselves one day....well reality says that they aren't going to do so. It's all about finding new sites...in some cases that may mean logging some miles on the vehicle to get to new areas outside the home range. I figured this out on my trips to Virginia for relic hunting. Locally in Tennessee and north Georgia, my best relic days I can remember, were finding 15-20 dropped bullets in a days hunt with a few buttons mixed in....I had one time I did dig 50+ bullets but that was a super good day. And my last several trips to Virginia, I would average 100 dropped bullets a weekend, 30+ buttons, other odds and ends, and have a good chance of a belt or breastplate. Location, Location, Location more so than machine.

Yes, Daniel, I agree, and you pegged me. I have a friend (who just called and said: Hey they are ripping up the asphalt from the bank where we tore the union bullets up. Lets meet there at 5 today) I said okay. But I ain't too excited. We might find a few more bullets. But that old tyme feeling of going to a new yard in the historic district and finding pieces of cannon ball, a whole grapeshot, gold coin, three half dimes stuck togther, sword hook, bullets (teardrops, minie's, sharps) has just gone away and I fear that it will not return until new places happen. I'm not too bashful. I will walk up and knock with hat in hand or hat on head (whichever the situation calls for) and ask for permission. 90% of the time I am granted permission because eveyone new daddy (he was a family practictioner). But I am nothing like him. I took a wrong turn in life and became a self-medicator.....but have been sober and following Christ for 8 years. (Did y'all just see that????? I changed the subject right in mid sentence and didn't even mean too. I even forgot the point I was making.
Anyway, thanks for the reply Daniel. You can be a pretty good ol feller when ya got a mind ta. I'm teasing. I sincerely appreciate your feedback VERY much. Always have. Even during shaky periods. And to the other repliers (of my querys) I want to say thank ya and shake your hand. It will have to be a cyber-shake. I am shaking my hand in front of the screen right now, as if I had a couple of fire ants betwixt my fangers.

I know where you are coming from in some ways Daniel...yet at the same time some of my best finds have come form areas called dead...its the course you take to get to the finds....

Detector's are simply tools to help us make finds but some of the finds come from exploratory type hunt's...I like the sites that are hunted out to be truthfull...I can take my time and have no real competition...

What the real kicker is is the finds lyng in th eopen under our noses in bad dirt...one more inch can net you finds in bad dirt...

the reason people dig bullet's at depth but not hat pins buttons and other things of low conductance is because the dit kills the singnal..so much that not even a grunt can take place..

the breast plate you found was most likely masked from pinsetraw...airgaps are awful....think of the confederate buttons that lie jsut under the pinestraw thast is called iron...

They scraped the ground here locally one time on a hunted out field and 58 Known G.M. I Buttons came to light along with buckles other reb buttons etc,,,we had a field day on that dead site...So yes the finds are there but they are hard to get...

add bad dirt and iron and the equation gets even harder...

As i talk about the CTX i dont want people to think they have to have one to make find's.....they dont...but if you want a FBS machine the CTX is the best offering right now....

Depth seems no better than the etrac or explorer...but what I do see is more accurate discrimination AT DEPTH.. and more target's found in trash for cherry picking than with the explorer or etrac...

can the CTX compete with a DEUS on unmasking an eagle button in a carpet of nails that other machines have walked across...probabably not....but at the same time the CTX will find things in iron that the DEUS will not find and vice versa...and the same holds true for the G2 and the F75 and the well you get the picture...LOL!!!

The way I see the CTX is if you have funky dirt and like the FBS platform...the CTX is the next logical step.....

On side note if you have good dirt the CTX is one of the most powerful detectors on coins I have ever witnessed for depth.....

the airtest results are astounding on this machine so neutral loamy sandy dirt ought to take you to unexplorerd level's with i.d. ability...theres a definate boost going on on this platfrom at 30 sens...

but I say all this to people who consider a CTX..If people do not ...it is pricey...dont feel left out or left behind or anything silly like that....but for the people who do opt for one the added bonus will be more exact precise disc and I.D. less falsing more stability more ergonomic..future proof for a while anyway with downloadable upgrades....


can I justfy 2500.00 for it for a person who likes FBS and hunts once aweek or so NOPE...but if you like to spend every moment of your life contemplating detectors and hunting ...the CTX is a very appealing unit to posses on a couple of level's.

I still feel the true potential is yet to be tapped .and the potential can come form upgrades with a data cable connection.

Keith

As a detector dealer for many years I have had it made - it has been part of my job to basically try out any new thing that got my attention. It has been great as I enjoy playing with a new unit as much as anyone.

But now that I am getting out of retail to focus on full time metal detecting and writing it is also causing me to focus more on what is real. I am narrowing my options from all the detectors made down to that half dozen that really do the job for me. There are as has been said no magic detectors so what works for me is just that - what works for me in my ground hunting my targets. What feels good and sounds good to me. And since no one machine does it all, I have ended up with a small group of detectors that will do what I want to do. Machines I know and have faith in, which is part of the overall game.

Ultimately there is no point is looking to others for answers. I really appreciate the opinions of others and enjoy gleaning what information I can from posts - thank you all who offer up that information! But at the end of the day I have to just try them out and find out what works for me. What works for me might not work for you for all kinds of reasons, some just as basic as the way the detector sounds. It is as simple as that.

Now that I have pretty much settled on my tool box, it is time to indeed get real. It is all about location and hours and I am looking forward to finally being able to get in as much time as I want going wherever I want with a metal detector. At some point "what to use" has to get put behind us so we can get on with the job at hand. Which is actually getting out and going metal detecting. It is getting so close I can taste it!

So why the dissertation? The CTX 3030 is a great unit, but not the end all be all unit. Just another tool for the toolbox!

Steve Herschbach



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2013 08:19PM by Steve Herschbach.

Hey Steve, just curious, what other detectors you have in your tool box, and for what uses? I realize your in gold country. Good luck on your new adventure!

Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Kevin ole buddy, I think you and I are on the same
> page with these detectors. It just took you less
> time than it took me to figure it all out. I kept
> thinking I had to find the magic detector....and
> I'd buy, try, and sell...with every machine that
> came out and I would take them all to the same ole
> places thinking it was going to turn them all into
> like virgin sites again. Price was no object to
> obtain this illusion...heck I jumped on the
> Minelab GPX wagon for a while which is the deepest
> machine I've ever encountered. And it was just
> exactly like you said...all to go back to the same
> sites, and maybe find a crumbling button or a
> couple bullets that were out of reach of other
> detectors. In one case with the GPX, it was a
> breastplate that I found in a camp we had hunted
> hard for years....but was it so much as the GPX
> going deeper...or was it that it happened to be
> found in a stand of pine trees that they were
> cutting out, and that the entire time we had
> hunted the camp in the past, it was so thick you
> couldn't hardly move in it. Once they started
> cutting trees they opened it all up and allowed
> for being able to actually swing a coil.
>
> There's a guy locally that has a Minelab XTerra
> 70. He has had it about 4-5 years now. In that
> 4-5 year time frame, he's dug more relics than all
> of us other local hunters combined in the same
> time frame. Why is that? Is it his machine? Well
> not exactly. He is a run and gun hunter...he
> hunts a lot of places and never gets hung up on
> the same site. Mostly because most of the sites
> he hunts, he don't have permission for and just
> goes. The rest of us get stuck in ruts and keep
> going back to the same sites hoping they will
> magically refill themselves one day....well
> reality says that they aren't going to do so.
> It's all about finding new sites...in some cases
> that may mean logging some miles on the vehicle to
> get to new areas outside the home range. I
> figured this out on my trips to Virginia for relic
> hunting. Locally in Tennessee and north Georgia,
> my best relic days I can remember, were finding
> 15-20 dropped bullets in a days hunt with a few
> buttons mixed in....I had one time I did dig 50+
> bullets but that was a super good day. And my
> last several trips to Virginia, I would average
> 100 dropped bullets a weekend, 30+ buttons, other
> odds and ends, and have a good chance of a belt or
> breastplate. Location, Location, Location more
> so than machine.


this is correct! move around get outside your comfort zone
make things happen purposely "look" and look some more!
always trying to spot new areas! hunt as many as you can don't get hung up one just one or two places!
try to keep it fresh,and different ...just sayin'

(h.h.!)
j.t.

Very True Words Steve,,

What works for me may not work for you and vice versa...

Everywhere is different soil...everyone hunts differently and everyone has different idea's on how to hunt...

its fun to study up and read and watch but at the end of the day we have to make the ultimate decision on what we want ...

At this point I am about bored with everything ,,,I see a few machine's that excite me like the DTVG,,,,the DEUS/GMP...the technolgy of the CTX...

yet I want to see a new barrier crossed.....I hope for a pulse disc circuit....yet I may be way off base and something comes along to obsolete all known transmission method's we the user know of right now...

have fun on your summer long quest for Gold!

sounds like a dream come true..

Keith

Like you Keith I would like to see an actual advance in basic technology. But the CTX shows how new processing techniques applied to older technology can produce surprising results.

Possum, I currently use the following to mainly hunt gold nuggets but I am also into gold jewelry:

Minelab GPX 5000 - Main gold nugget getter
Fisher F75 SE - Hunting larger gold in junk infested tailing piles
Fisher Gold Bug Pro - Same as F75, plus jewelry in areas where EMI renders F75 useless
Fisher Gold Bug 2 - Tiny gold
White's DFX with Bigfoot - Jewelry, parks and fields
Minelab CTX 3030 - Jewelry in water and out, coins

I am in the market for a waterproof PI by February and am holding out for the mythical waterproof White's TDI. If not that may have to pick up another Infinium, but that is another machine where I am waiting hopefully for a new version. I always wonder why Minelab does not make a waterproof PI. I would pay big bucks for a GPX in a CTX housing!

Starting in mid June I will be detecting for gold most days of the week. Going to be interesting to see how much I can find going at it full time.

Steve Herschbach

Got the coil today Tommy...

Already ran it about 5 hours....works well....

will report my findings as I discover them...

thanks again...

Keith

Been following the post here Keith and it sounds like a great machine (makin me kinda jealous)!

You plan on doing any/much water hunting with it during the season??

Not a lot of info reported here on a 3030 being used in water - just curious as to how it does on gold jewelry in fresh water

anywho - your reports so far have been informative and look forward to seeing more as you progress with the unit

HH and good luck with your finds :-)

Wayne
MRH

Keith, don't forget to hit that creek that was in one of your pictures with the CTX.....gotta good feling about that creek.

The CTX is surprisingly VERY good on on small low conductors in the water. Most of my time was spent in the water last year and a couple times it took me multiple scoops to find the tiny ( 1/3 size of a dime) piece of foil as it kept falling through the sifter.

I'll tell you it's really cool, in the first time since I started water hunting 26yrs ago, to have all this info on a VDI screen!

Now the 6" coil in junk and iron....that's another bonus!

Keith did you get the 6" coil yet ?

with the tone break being able to be moved we are now able to see better target separation than ever before in a FBS machine....the explorer or etrac struggle with this test even with the 4.5x7 excelerator coil...the CTX passes this with uncanny ease...

Only a handfull of tone machines can pass this test....

[www.youtube.com]

Keith

Heres the nail baord test quite impressive to say the least!
[www.youtube.com]

Keith

With a wide open screen the machine is equally accepting the nail and the coin.
Even if our brain tells us to listen to the high tone.

Now add a small square of discrimination to the nominal ID for the nail and see what happens.
Then you are asking the machine to like coin more.
It will need a slightly slower sweep for the machine to be able to analyse the situation, from my experience anyway.

HH
Johnb

If you add dicrimination John it casues a null....then a recovery from the Null and that causes the unmasking to be less...always keep the Audio gate open for best unmasking on any platform....


I also find any disc at wide open sens like's to false a bit more on iron...

Let the audio be your ultimate decider...let everything in through the audio report...just simplify it with 2 tone only...

purely for relic hunting I might add...

Keith



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2013 02:05AM by Keith Southern.

How does the factory coil compare in the nail test Keith.

Tommy C.
(southernexplorer)
Deus - Etrac - GPX 5000

Keith, PM me your address. I will be ready soon to turn loose of " Big Burtha"

Tom in SC

pretty close on these particular test...

the advantage of tone break adjustment does wonders for these types scenario's...Small or large coil....not enough nails in the test to really start to see the utmost advantage of the 6 inch...

Keith

Gotcha Tman...Sending info now...

I have a perfect spot to run this coill...super rare bullets at depth in the spot....

Keith

Fellas, I really like the discussion of this unit on this forum... none of the edited, sanitized stuff seen so often on Gary Keithline's Findmall site. "Digger" does an excellent job with the CTX site over there but the complete absence of critical discussion is worrisome. I believe this one sided treatment actually hurts sales for his sponsors rather than helps them regarding the review of a new, competent machine like the 3030.

Again, we find that Tom's site here is the model for which other to aspire. Guvner, you've got a little work to do to catch up...

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Heres the nail baord test quite impressive to say
> the least!
> [www.youtube.com]
>
> Keith

specifically did you use smaller nail in position 2. ????
see for there is very little nail
I had a 3030 and doing badly in this test
Omega and G2 beats him to head in this test



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2013 02:47PM by Denari.

Same nail I used for the G2 Omega test Denari..

But remember these are just test..real world is where it count's...

I am just pleased to finally have a FBS machine that has adjustable tone break....it changes everthing when sifting through iron....

This was one thing that held me back on using one for unmasking in iron and also the ergonomics were awful on the FBS...now the table has turned somewhat.Has it not?

the 3030 is proving itself now to be a real arounder...I can swing it all day on side note!

Keith

I have owned a lot the FBS machines. Safari, Explorer, Etrac and now the CTX. For me I think the Explorer SE Pro was better than the Etrac. But the CTX has become my favorite FBS machine.
It gives you the ability to setup the machine to cover different types of hunting as well as different types of soil. It could be just luck, but I have found more old coins with the CTX and less trash than any other machine. We have 5 parks here that are close enough to visit each day after work and not cut into the Honey Do list. I have searched the parks with every machine that I have owned. Other that a very hot CZ6A
(Yes Dan that is the one) I have found only a few old coins. Now with the CTX I am digging 9" silver coins and more wheat cents than I have ever found. At first I thought it was because I was getting more depth, but now I feel it is also machine as well.

Tom in SC

Good real world info Tom....

Sounds good on the deep silver ...Congrat's

Keith