CTX swing speed

[Quackenbush]

Hello all, I am new to this forum and was hoping if you guys could help me. I just received my ctx 3030, and while reading through the manual I read it recommends a sweep speed of 4 seconds left to right. That seems unbelievably slow. I practiced it and I can't imagine i could swing it that slow. I realize it has 27 frequencies and you need to go slow for it to process all the information. I think I would be fine sweeping it in a high trash area such as an old foundation, but one of my favorite places are these wide open colonial fields that are relatively clean. Do you all sweep yours that slow or can you sweep it faster in clean areas?

 

[thE-TRACker]

I search the beach mostly and usually use a 2 second sweep speed . This way I cover more ground and still get great depth. I do use the 17" coil and have noticed with a slow sweep speed you can detect very small targets but overall I find better targets covering more ground than I do at a snails pace . I know there are many that say the slower the better but I don't find that to be true when covering large expanses. In fact , sometimes a fast sweep speed will give me more and different information on the very deep targets . JMHO

 

[CT Todd]

Your sweep speed has a lot to do with what's going on under your coil. If there is lots of iron and or other targets then your sweep speed should be noticeably slower then your normal but if you are working a field and things are relatively quiet then it will speed up a tad. I think controlling your coil IE flat and low is a much more important thing to work on. You will get the feel for your new unit and how fast to swing it for the best result. HH

 

[Quackenbush]

Thanks for the advice guys. now can someone make it warm up here in New England so I can get out and use it?

 

[Bell-Two]

Todd is correct swing speed is site specific. In a clean yard with not much iron you can swing a bit faster, in a trashy park or iron littered field site a slower sweep would be beneficial. I have found a good target that is next to big iron may give a small peep and then if you slow down a lot the iron will sometimes totally overwhelm the signal. In that case I swing over it faster and if the peep returns turn on angles and do the same and if it repeats then dig it.

 

[Johnnyanglo]

If the ground is relatively clean - meaning there is not a lot of buried iron masking non-ferrous and it isn't littered with non-ferrous junk - swing it smoothly left-right at about 2-3 seconds. If you need to isolate a non-ferrous hit or examine a null, narrow the sweep and slow it down. But in an open field you don't have to worry that you will miss anything swinging it fast. If there is anything in detection range it will beep. The primary freq on the CTX is sending a magnetic field into the ground 3125 times each second, you can't out race it. The time to slow down is when you want to hit the target with lots of field pulses - to get better discrimination for instance or hit it from different sweep angles to try and drive some current in the target.

 

[tcornel]

When doing clean areas like beach or fields do you tip up the front of the coil to cover more area?

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

It all depends on trash level and how much discrimination you are using. If in stock coin mode and moderate trash 4 seconds seems about right. All depends on the situation. You have to learn how fast to swing.

 

[Jason in Enid]

When doing clean areas like beach or fields do you tip up the front of the coil to cover more area?

WTH?!

simple answer is NO!

 

[Drjohn71a]

rcornel - These types of metal detectors run on the principle of sending out signals to stimulate underground objects and capturing the objects' reactions to the signal with the coil. When the coil is not parallel to the ground, much of the sent signal is scattered away from underlying area, reducing the amount of sent signal to the underground objects. In addtition, the tilted coil is less efficient in capturing the resulting underground objects' emissions. By tilting the coil you lose both on signals sent and signals received while losing much of the targeting accuracy.

 

[tcornel]

Thanks for the answers. I have seen guys on the beach and land do that. When I asked them why they said they could cover more area and were listening for blips before zeroing in on the target and that it helped them cover the territory missed at the end of both sweeps.

That just leaves more targets for others.

 

[AngelicStorm]

If the ground is relatively clean - meaning there is not a lot of buried iron masking non-ferrous and it isn't littered with non-ferrous junk - swing it smoothly left-right at about 2-3 seconds. If you need to isolate a non-ferrous hit or examine a null, narrow the sweep and slow it down. But in an open field you don't have to worry that you will miss anything swinging it fast. If there is anything in detection range it will beep. The primary freq on the CTX is sending a magnetic field into the ground 3125 times each second, you can't out race it. The time to slow down is when you want to hit the target with lots of field pulses - to get better discrimination for instance or hit it from different sweep angles to try and drive some current in the target.

You said it. I find lots of times after adjusting the swing speed on a suspected target that what was once a small blip or beep can become very clear. It also works the other way. What could have been a suspected target can suddenly become clear to you that it is ferrous. You could say that the detector becomes adjusted to the target and the more it focuses in on it the more clear the picture can become.