Beach hunting with the CTX

[Jason in TN]

After about thirty hours with the CTX at the beach I learned a few things these may not work on your beach but hope it helps some of you guys headed to the beach. The first was trying to run manual settings on the beach did not work well for me. I got a lot of chatter running in the low to mid 20's as the ground changed and going from water to wet sand. I used the stock beach program and accepted the top section on the far right that was discriminated out. I had one heavy silver ring that hit in the 01-48 range that I may not have gotten if that area was discriminated out. I ran at auto + 3 almost 100% of the time and the CTX ran great in these settings. I watched and the sensitivity ran from 13 up to 31 at times and threshold ran smooth and ID was spot on with good targets locking on in the 12 line for the most part. Got targets deep enought to make me think the auto was running hot enough to get the job done. Several quarters at close to a foot that would lock on at 12-46. Got one match box car that was around 18 inches it locked on in the quarter range and sounded good. Don't be afraid to run the auto settings at the beach for me it was the only wy to go. One more thing the CTX did very well on bottle caps some sounded good but looking at the display the up and down smear in the ferrous line would give them away every time. Good luck.

Jason

 

[cdsmith46]

Due to the price, a CTX is not likely in my future. But I would say this: Your testing sure enough makes me want one. Great write-up and testing!

 

[Digger]

Good info Jason. Thanks for explaining your choice of settings. One thing I would note...... had you been using FE-Coin or Ground-Coin Separation, the ring would likely have given a 12 FE reading, or in that range. Seems the High Trash and Low Trash (which is default in Beach mode) are the two modes providing 01 FE readings on big silver and other large, high conductive targets. HH Randy

 

[Jason in TN]

Thanks Randy i was in the low trash mode when i got that reading. Deep on fast off.

 

[North Georgia Relics]

Great info Jason. Glad you had a good trip.

 

[Jason in TN]

Thanks Don got my CTX from Don great guy to deal with. Made a little road trip to get me my CTX helped me out a lot. Great guy. Thanks again Don.

 

[Fired89]

Thanks Jason I'll give it a try been Using my Excalibur 11 just because it was getting mad just sitting at home but it got in trouble today it didn't produce so back to the 3030

 

[Jason in TN]

Thanks Jason I'll give it a try been Using my Excalibur 11 just because it was getting mad just sitting at home but it got in trouble today it didn't produce so back to the 3030

Your welcome hope it goes well for you. I will be back at the beach soon and have the 17" coil to try out my shoulder is hurting just thinking about it. We will see how it goes. One more thing to add have talked to a few folks that said on there beach the ground coin mode had helped with false signals and chatter. Was not needed where I hunt but if you have any problems may want to give it a try.


Jason

 

[Buried Crap NJ]

Thanks for the info Jason. I have 180 plus hrs beach hunting and I now feel auto plus 2 works well for me. I am still wrestling with Deep On lower gain vs. Fast Recovery and push the gain! They both have good atributes. I am surprized about the 01-48 and its probally do to the tone it falls in on my set up. I will dig some of those to see just what comes out. I have three gold rings and the were all on the 12 line from 03 to35 which doen't matter as all 12's are a dig!
BCNJ

 

[nimbus]

I agree with Jason on the auto+3 at the beach. With deep and low trash both ON and ground balance disabled. It works when you have no other choice but to work the beach in both directions, parallel and perpendicular to the water. In manual it was way too chatty and by the time I backed it down to being stable, I was below what auto would provide with no chatter especially on those parallel walks. When I used my regular headphones, I was digging some deep coins 10-12" ones that I walked over with my E-trac many times.

Target ID for me was perfect. I pretty much knew what I was going to dig when I heard the tone and saw the TID. Tiny surface foil was tricky, it TID at foil, but depth was always 7" when it really was 1-2".
I thought this was pretty cool, I happened upon a pocket spill that was scattered in a 2'x2' area. The initial sweep grabbed the quarters that were there with a high tone, but additional sweeps produced a 4 tone progression; low, low- med, med-high, and high in left to right and the opposite when i swept right to left. Much to my amazement there were nickles, pennies, dimes, and quarters exactly where each tone sounded off. The coins were between 5-8". Other multi-coin digs produced the same results, the coin with the strongest time constant was heard first then the 3030 sounded the presence of other coins. I really like how this machine works.

Down side, like many others have stated, it's difficult to ID a foil juice pouch or a beverage can without digging at least to the target depth, then the can becomes a clear 12-39 and the hole is 12 inches deep but the depth indicator says 5-6". Foil juice pouches are worse, they fall closer to the gold ring TIDs. So when those odd numbers appear on the 12 line and its not a tab and not a penny my heart beats a little faster till either I find the juice pouch, a toy car, or a pretty gold ring.

Pinpointing with the 3030 is amazing. Spot dead on in location and depth. I very rarely had to use the wiggle.

I have so much more to learn with the 3030, and I really look forward to each and every time I get out there.

 

[Confused]

Hey guys, what is the Auto+3. I am totally new at MD and I jumped in with both feet. The CTX3030 is my first detector. OMG, I have so much to learn, but I am persistent. I don't give up that easy.

 

[Digger]

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?86,1753132,1753590#msg-1753590

 

[Jason in TN]

Thanks for the info Jason. I have 180 plus hrs beach hunting and I now feel auto plus 2 works well for me. I am still wrestling with Deep On lower gain vs. Fast Recovery and push the gain! They both have good atributes. I am surprized about the 01-48 and its probally do to the tone it falls in on my set up. I will dig some of those to see just what comes out. I have three gold rings and the were all on the 12 line from 03 to35 which doen't matter as all 12's are a dig!
BCNJ

The 1 48 was a very large thick silver ring probably close to a ounce.

Jason

 

[Jason in TN]

I agree with Jason on the auto+3 at the beach. With deep and low trash both ON and ground balance disabled. It works when you have no other choice but to work the beach in both directions, parallel and perpendicular to the water. In manual it was way too chatty and by the time I backed it down to being stable, I was below what auto would provide with no chatter especially on those parallel walks. When I used my regular headphones, I was digging some deep coins 10-12" ones that I walked over with my E-trac many times.

Target ID for me was perfect. I pretty much knew what I was going to dig when I heard the tone and saw the TID. Tiny surface foil was tricky, it TID at foil, but depth was always 7" when it really was 1-2".
I thought this was pretty cool, I happened upon a pocket spill that was scattered in a 2'x2' area. The initial sweep grabbed the quarters that were there with a high tone, but additional sweeps produced a 4 tone progression; low, low- med, med-high, and high in left to right and the opposite when i swept right to left. Much to my amazement there were nickles, pennies, dimes, and quarters exactly where each tone sounded off. The coins were between 5-8". Other multi-coin digs produced the same results, the coin with the strongest time constant was heard first then the 3030 sounded the presence of other coins. I really like how this machine works.

Down side, like many others have stated, it's difficult to ID a foil juice pouch or a beverage can without digging at least to the target depth, then the can becomes a clear 12-39 and the hole is 12 inches deep but the depth indicator says 5-6". Foil juice pouches are worse, they fall closer to the gold ring TIDs. So when those odd numbers appear on the 12 line and its not a tab and not a penny my heart beats a little faster till either I find the juice pouch, a toy car, or a pretty gold ring.

Pinpointing with the 3030 is amazing. Spot dead on in location and depth. I very rarely had to use the wiggle.

I have so much more to learn with the 3030, and I really look forward to each and every time I get out there.

Glad you are liking the CTX it has been very good to me at the beach the time I got to hunt with it I did well. Hope to make it back again some time this winter if we get some sand to move. I sold $400 in two gold rings I found the other day and still have a good bit of CTX gold left. Keep swigging for me it is a keeper for the beach. Hope to get to use it in the dirt some soon.

Jason