New CTX user, need some guidance please.

[Giz]

Having read revues, watched You tube videos from people connected with Minelab and from Forum users. I have bought the CTX 3030 from Crawford's ordered Thursday arrived the next day that's good service , primarily to use on the beach as well as land. I have in the past owned an Explorer XS and the Sovereign GT, so I was aware of the weigh tissue, the capabilities of FBS on wet sand and to swing low and slow.

Over the weekend I have been reading the on line manual, I also bought the CTX book by Andy Sabisch which is well written and have been tinkering with the settings in the comfort of my living room. Not been out with it yet, when I do I will use a factory setting as suggested.

I see there are 5 factory settings and 5 personal settings. Most of the factory settings have some discrimination. I may be being a bit thick but when making a personal programme, when it comes to adding discrimination to the 2 patterns, how do you know what you are discriminating out or do I place on the surface/bury various items and see where they appear on the screen and transfer to my programme or am I hopefully missing the point I have a Deus and make my own programmes, no problems. However there is no screen pattern on the Deus and on the Deus I only use a bare minimum of 1 of discrimination . Meanwhile back to the manual & book.

[sweepstick47]

Good Luck with the CTX 'Giz', Can't offer any guidance on the 3030. The XS2A Pro is the limit of my Minelab experience. There are plenty of members on here who are able to provide the info you're after and they'll surely be here shortly, so over to them Cheers. Regards ss47

[Giz]

Good Luck with the CTX 'Giz', Can't offer any guidance on the 3030. The XS2A Pro is the limit of my Minelab experience. There are plenty of members on here who are able to provide the info you're after and they'll surely be here shortly, so over to them Cheers. Regards ss47

Thanks SS. Not stressed, looking forward to a new challenge.

[fred]

Well done mate. I didn't realise that you had used an XS previously. You really shouldn't have any difficulty with the CTX, setup and signal wise it has a lot of similarities.

On both land and beaches I started out using the standard Relic programme from the menu. I used the screen with the blanked out line at the bottom as the main screen (each programme has 2 screens which you can toggle between for better target ID if you so wish) and target lock on. It can be a bit chirpy but once you get the swing speed right it's stable enough. There are custom programmes available but I am very suspicious of them mainly because any programme with large areas of the screen blanked out is asking for trouble unless you are seeking specific targets and not really interested in depth.

Ground balance before you start and regularly if needed. Swing very slowly indeed and investigate all of the small sharp signals, especially on land. Cut quarters can be located at fantastic depths but only if you move the searchcoil slowly.

Remember that on beaches you are likely to be looking for really deep stuff below the depth that the tone and screen IDs work at. Take a big spade with you and dig all faint repeatable sounds as well as the obvious ones. You will dig some rubbish to start with but if there is good stuff there you should find it.

Once you have got the hang of all of the above it is possible to tweak a few of the controls to get even more sensitivity. When you get there I'll explain what you need to do.

Best of luck and do let us know how you get on.

PS Offer of personal tuition still applies. I will next be up towards the end of this week for a few days. PM me if interested.

[Euro Detector]

Congrats on the new machine Giz

[Mac91]

Good luck with the new machine, hoping to take the plunge myself shortly on one

[Adam17]

So firstly well done with your choice.

I got mine a short while ago and love it!
I know what you mean when it comes to making your own pattern, and I haven't found anything in black and white that says where a particular metal will fall on the grid..

And from what I have read (I am now on my second read of andy sabisch book) the metals will not always stick to a particular FE CO number, as ground mineralisation, orientation, size and depth amongst other factors like how long it has been in the ground etc etc, these will cause the number to change slightly.

With the new technology the ctx has the FE CO values stay close together from in ground test to air tests, but again will be different.. So I haven't actually bothered conducting any air test, I don't see the point if the numbers will change from air test to real targets in the ground.. As I don't want to inadvertently miss anything...

Later in andy's book he says about the preinstalled programmes and adjustments to make to them to cover ground conditions and also setting conditions... E.G. When you use high trash the FE CO numbers shift from the 12 line to the 1 line, which is something you will need to remember when you have the settings activated..

Also in Andy book it says that you SHOULDN'T USE THE GROUND BALANCE unless absolutely necessary, the ctx is super smart and will make all the necessary adjustments it needs to run smoothly. If you are getting chatter or lots of noise try the - noise cancel button, this will choose a channel that suits the ground conditions you are in. So as another comment says to use the ground balance I would ignore that, maybe it was a typo error, who knows. But I found the noise cancel to work perfectly...

At the moment I am using Gordon heritage - tadpole programme as it is quite open and just knocks out the iron, which is all I want.. Followed by Neil's Slow_N_Low programme (which is quite noisy and is taking me a while to get used too.

I wish you all the best in your detecting.

If I can help at all then message me.

Regards
Adam17

[Junior]

I use the gordan tadpole program and the scots lad out of the books also be it a slight variation on it 2 lines of disc on the bottom 2 lines. With this though I've dug a fare few nails. With a variation of ....... Fast off. Deep on. Sens 26. Seawater on. Single tone 760khz. Ferrous coin.. With the 3030 u need to check out the slightest target noise as I've found the speed int great and u then do just the target it gets better. This can b annoying.....re checking stuff. When I get fed up with the 2 lines of disc I then go back to gordan s tadpole. Don't rely tooo much on the no s as I've had 9:::30 s turn into 12::20 When out. If it beep s dig it. Good luck

[Adam17]

Hi again.

So I just wanted to add a note to the above comment I made.

Last weekend I went to the beach and I was running a mixture of tadpole4/ghost4/and my own home made program with all the edges discrimed out for super trashy places, with mode 2 an open screen, with combined tones.
I also tried some other beach programmes and other programs collected from social media groups.

But Saturday mostly stayed in ghost4..

And do you know what I love it... It's my new favourite.. And I reckon its what ill be using in the future..

I used to think hearing the iron was a bad thing, so I used programs that cut the iron out, but somehow always ended up digging loads of iron, as the tones were nulled/ blanked/ clipped/ chirpy & that made good tones unclear to me, so I dug all the signals. The ctx3030(me) seemed to get muddled (plus not being sure how to read the machine correctly with unclear tones, it was user error also).

But Saturday I came home with 1 piece of iron... And I dug that signal out of sheer curiosity as it had a slight blip of a high tone, and it turned out to be a tiny piece of iron, that when removed from the sand gave a clear iron tone. I really liked that all the tones were clear, precise, and I knew when it was iron..

I tried a few other programs but didn't like the tone profile.. Where the notes stick.. I may go back and adjust those and retry them, but a big thumbs up for ghost... Previous I stuck with tadpole and was told try to ghost to accompany the tadpole program, boy I'm glad I did.. to be honest, I'm not sure ill be using tadpole again, or the 4 profiles I made up(they are with combined tones)

Also was my first time out with Mal Surffones, hence the 'try out' of the different programs.
I had the Surffones hardwired to the ctx that time, and next time I'll try on the Wm10, and then with 1/4" jack to ctx, then I'll be compiling my review of them.

[Junior]

Don't go by the numbers on the screen they can change once you get nearer it or get it out. And go low and slows. I use tadpoles or just 2 bottom lines of disc. And single tone. Usually run it at 24-26 on power. I generally dig a bit of iron for what ever reason. Tend to prefer it to the French stick even though it's a lot heavier and seems slower. !!! Just something about it. .If it beeps dig it.

[Adam17]

Most definitely, I love my ctx3030, it's a blast of machine!

[Giz]

Don't go by the numbers on the screen they can change once you get nearer it or get it out. And go low and slows. I use tadpoles or just 2 bottom lines of disc. And single tone. Usually run it at 24-26 on power. I generally dig a bit of iron for what ever reason. Tend to prefer it to the French stick even though it's a lot heavier and seems slower. !!! Just something about it. .If it beeps dig it.

Hi Junior, thanks for your reply not sure what you mean by single tone as I use 2 tone ferrous and the menu doesn't show single tone, and you run at 24-26 power, do you mean volume limit?
I do have a question for you and other CTX users, this being, I previously owned a Sov GT. When I went over a target I received a loud no nonsense response from my headphones. With the CTX and with the volume limit at 30, I find I have really have to concentrate or I may miss the target and it doesn't matter whether the target is small/large/deep/shallow . I am using the supplied Koss UR 30. Look forward to your thoughts and recommendations.

[Swany]

Join Minelab owners, download Tadpole 4 and the CTX 17" Mk II programme, I use MKII all the time, it hits everything, listen for the high tones in between the iron grunts, toggle to tadpole 4 to give your ears a rest. Lots of good info to be found there to.

[fred]

Don't go by the numbers on the screen they can change once you get nearer it or get it out. And go low and slows. I use tadpoles or just 2 bottom lines of disc. And single tone. Usually run it at 24-26 on power. I generally dig a bit of iron for what ever reason. Tend to prefer it to the French stick even though it's a lot heavier and seems slower. !!! Just something about it. .If it beeps dig it.

Hi Junior, thanks for your reply not sure what you mean by single tone as I use 2 tone ferrous and the menu doesn't show single tone, and you run at 24-26 power, do you mean volume limit?
I do have a question for you and other CTX users, this being, I previously owned a Sov GT. When I went over a target I received a loud no nonsense response from my headphones. With the CTX and with the volume limit at 30, I find I have really have to concentrate or I may miss the target and it doesn't matter whether the target is small/large/deep/shallow . I am using the supplied Koss UR 30. Look forward to your thoughts and recommendations.

I really don't rate the Koss headphones. Different but good quality headphones will definitely help make the fainter sounds clearer and the tones more pleasant on your ears. However, it sounds as though your settings are somehow evening out the signals. Try turning down the gain a bit and see what happens, if that doesn't work try adjusting some of the other volume and tone related settings. They are all quite easy to play with in the field using the display buttons. Let me know how you get on.

[Adam17]

Don't go by the numbers on the screen they can change once you get nearer it or get it out. And go low and slows. I use tadpoles or just 2 bottom lines of disc. And single tone. Usually run it at 24-26 on power. I generally dig a bit of iron for what ever reason. Tend to prefer it to the French stick even though it's a lot heavier and seems slower. !!! Just something about it. .If it beeps dig it.

Hi Junior, thanks for your reply not sure what you mean by single tone as I use 2 tone ferrous and the menu doesn't show single tone, and you run at 24-26 power, do you mean volume limit?
I do have a question for you and other CTX users, this being, I previously owned a Sov GT. When I went over a target I received a loud no nonsense response from my headphones. With the CTX and with the volume limit at 30, I find I have really have to concentrate or I may miss the target and it doesn't matter whether the target is small/large/deep/shallow . I am using the supplied Koss UR 30. Look forward to your thoughts and recommendations.

try turning the volume gain up if your are struggling to catch the signal - I think the above user got mixed up with you saying that your volume limit is at 30 - the volume gain will help raise the strength of the signal from the coil to the headphones and make the tones 'clearer'. I have mine set about 27 but everyone is different so have a play and see what you think..

Adam17