Beach hunting with the ctx

[brother steve]

Down on the beach this week with the ctx hoping for some gold, but nothing yet. Should I ground balance when on the beach? Any tips from anyone that has had there's out on the beach would be appreciated.

 

[Larry (IL)]

Ground Balance on my fresh water beaches didn't help it any and as ML said, GB is for highly mineralized ground. If you are hunting in the black sand in California, I'd say yea, give it a try. Heck, give it a try anyway and see what happens, you sure are not going to hurt it any.

 

[Jason in TN]

Is it a salt water beach if so no ground balance. I have spent some time on the beach made a post in the classroom about beach hunting check it out.


Jason

 

[unearth]

I live in So. Cal. and have hunted several of the beaches here with my ctx. I have done the GB and sometimes have not. Can't tell if it has made any difference tho'.

 

[Buried Crap NJ]

A couple of things come to mind.We read in the manual only GB if highly mineralized soil. Is there any place more highly minealized than than a salt water beach? Because in that same user manual its says do not GB at the beach! Its no wonder people are confused.
As an added note that same manual says that Not all parts of the CTX3030 are waterproof ?????
BCNJ

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Use ground coin, turn pre set gain down 3-4 notches and use auto. Worked for me!

 

[Joe of South Jersey]

Steve
Use the setting that you used on last trip......Things have not changed much. The sand is still building.

 

[unearth]

For many years I've been told that California beaches are the worst, in the US, for black sand. I do not know for a fact if that is true or not, but as Jason and Digger have said, no GB at saltwater beaches. The manual says, use GB in highly mineralized soil. Is the beach sand considered "soil"? If so, then why not GB as Larry (IL) says. It's a bit confusing for me.
I know what many detectorists say, use what works for you in your situation, but I find it a bit difficult to discern the difference between using GB or not using GB at the beach or anywhere else for that matter.

 

[texasranger]

---

A couple of things come to mind.We read in the manual only GB if highly mineralized soil. Is there any place more highly minealized than than a salt water beach? Because in that same user manual its says do not GB at the beach! Its no wonder people are confused.
As an added note that same manual says that Not all parts of the CTX3030 are waterproof ?????
BCNJ

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hi there, BC , Larry, and all"

I sympathise with B-C-NJ and other confused detectorists who read the forums where the term MINERALIZED is used....BUT NOT DEFINED.

That's the problem when people use the term mineralization, loosely...It has no clear indication of what mineral is being referred to.

Ideally, where ever possible, we should try and use some common terms, like Fe for its magnetic effect ...or 'salt' for its conductivity enhancing effect.

The presence of water, when apparent, should also be stated.

Fact is, we often don't have a clue really, so we can only make guesses...BASED ON THEIR EFFECTS ON OUR DETECTOR.

Those types of detector that have some form of graphs showing relative Fe mineralisation do offer a clue, to that mineral's presence.

Detectorists with an appropriate technical background, can make more informed guesses as to the 'trend' of the dominant changes and causes,

based on setting the threshold tone's level when 'Ground balancing' 'IN AIR', then noting the rise or fall of that level when the search-head is placed on the ground's surface (on a target free spot).

Ferrite would normally cause the opposite effects (fall), compared to conductive salts.(rise)

They can both be present at the same time, in a variety of ratios, so compounding matters.

Of course, you could have the situation where the ratio of either mineralization effect balance out.....and you wouldn't be any the wiser....



Confusing.?........It certainly can be unless you work in a laboratory, or have access to other field instrumentation !

And all this can depend on the time of the day....month....season....year....rain or shine.....

[size=x-large]So don't be too hard on yourself.....or your detector.....when the question is asked,

"How did I miss that one?"​

..................[/size]Tex.

P.S. Remember...your CTX3030 is a 'Time domain' unit, which handles ground 'differently' than does a conventional 'Frequency domain' unit.

 

[TheGeorgiaCanuck]

Black Sand beaches in Vancouver, BC. My AT-Pro GB's at 94 on a scale of 0-99. Highly mineralized sand. The parks here are hot too, 90-92 GB.

I've been looking at purchasing a Deus, but now I'm leaning more towards the CTX3030, mainly cause I can buy it local and if set up right it'll pull stuff out of trash/iron ground as good or better than the Deus and is deeper readout too.

Anyone have *ANY* experience with the CTX in highly mineralized ground or beach sands? I'd like to see your comments.

 

[texasranger]

A couple of things come to mind.We read in the manual only GB if highly mineralized soil. Is there any place more highly minealized than than a salt water beach? Because in that same user manual its says do not GB at the beach! Its no wonder people are confused.
As an added note that same manual says that Not all parts of the CTX3030 are waterproof ?????
BCNJ

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

BC.....regarding the particular phrase in the hand book regarding 'don't GB at the beach'

I'm sure they meant, don't GB on salt-wet sand, (or in the salt water), because that is fundamentally 'a VERY conductive source'.....a pseudo target.

GB-ing to such, may de-sensitise the unit to deep gold !......and you may not be able to realise that.

As I tried to explain earlier.......'mineralized soil' loosely infers it is magnetic mineralization that dominates, even though other non-magnetic minerals also co-exist.

In the absence of Fe, then chemicals that make the soil acidic, (animal urine, dung, fertilizers, stagnant water) then dominate or 'mineralize' the ground, but with a different effect, causing a positive conductive-action due to increased eddy current flow in the soil.


This subject could occupy a book all by itself, so brief forum posts are not always sufficient to cover the subject in detail.......Tex

 

[Joe of South Jersey]

The beach is very different then land. On a beach you have pulled streaks of black sand that I prefer to let the detector handle.

I have turned the gain back a little to stablize the detector then run up the sen. in manual.

May seem arse backward, but it works.......I have picked small ring that are reading 12-01, 12-02

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Turn the gain down a few notches and use ground coin. That helped mine a lot on the beach.

 

[Erik in NJ]

Still many questions to be answered and the manual is not the panacea that some believe. Maybe we should create a Wiki page and have many contributors with expertise like yours in different areas. Anyone know how to kick off a Wiki page?

 

[brother steve]

Well here's a update,dry and wet sand all works great. no ground balance. In the water it falses on every wave. I got used to it but still annoying. I tried different settings and still falsed.Silver rang up really good .No gold under the coil yet. One more evening water hunting and then back home to dirt fishing. I can say that water hunting in the surf is a workout and takes some practice.

 

[Buried Crap NJ]

Turn the gain down a few notches and use ground coin. That helped mine a lot on the beach.

I have settled in on the Ground Coin. I am pretty happy with Combined Mode(needs some tweaks) I am leaning more towards Deep Off but Fast On! I liked the reponse I was getting. I just started reading Gary Daryton Book On the CTX Beach Hunting. I saw a referance to Relic Mode and that being a better all metal mode. But don't quote that yet, I was thumbing through it.
BCNJ