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Gb and nc after changes
- Thread starter Coast
- Start date
IDXMonster
Well-known member
Under almost ALL types of conditions…do NOT check the box which ENABLES manual GB. Leaving the box UNCHECKED let’s the machine track on its own, which it is VERY good at. Only when your SUGGESTED SENSITIVITY number drops below 10 should you consider checking that box and doing a manual GB. AND…at that point, it is suggested that you then use the Ground Coin separation option. This is for the nastiest of ground! If for some reason (and that reason should not include “stubbornness”) you should be using a manual GB, it should be done if you see your SUGGESTED SENSITIVITY number change a lot, or when you change coils...or if you are getting a lot of falsing.
A noise cancel operation should be done when you arrive at a site and when you notice any kind of erratic behavior when your coil is motionless(noise NOT being caused by the coil seeing the actual ground/targets). It should also be done when you change coils.
The CTX is an incredibly forgiving machine, you can be a real dunce and do pretty well. It’s just that these few things will “clean up” the overall operation, possibly giving you more clear information about the site you’re in.
A noise cancel operation should be done when you arrive at a site and when you notice any kind of erratic behavior when your coil is motionless(noise NOT being caused by the coil seeing the actual ground/targets). It should also be done when you change coils.
The CTX is an incredibly forgiving machine, you can be a real dunce and do pretty well. It’s just that these few things will “clean up” the overall operation, possibly giving you more clear information about the site you’re in.
pulltabfelix
Well-known member
Mine has these two options when you long press ground balance:
Enable ground balance with a check box and below it start ground balance. Did you mean enable ground balance instead of enable manual ground balance?
Enable ground balance with a check box and below it start ground balance. Did you mean enable ground balance instead of enable manual ground balance?
IDXMonster
Well-known member
John…don’t confuse the operation of the Equinox and the CTX. The CTX can track all by itself with absolutely no operator input, as long as the “Enable Ground Balance“ box remains UNCHECKED. THE Equinox has 2 GB modes plus Auto Tracking. The CTX has 1 GB mode plus Auto Tracking. Leaving the box UNCHECKED will cover the vast majority of hunting conditions, and will produce the greatest number of intelligible targets. Only when ground conditions become untenable or when an operator has ALOT of experience should using a manual GB be considered with this particular machine.
Also observe that until the “Enable Ground Balance” box is checked, the “Start Ground Balance” below it remains greyed out.
They should have called it Pandoras box LOL Unless your VERY well versed leave it alone.
HH Jeff
pulltabfelix
Well-known member
Now I know thanks to you and others. The CTX3030 manual was not much help to me. You would think after 10 years Minelab could make that section of the CTX manual a little clearer. Since having the default as checked, that was what the engineers wanted you to use most of the time.
Read one 3030 guru who really believes in enabling GB for hunting the really deep stuff. Sounds like your saying its a function of coil size, open screen and manual(up to falsing point) and forget about gb adjustment unless circumstances really bad.
IDXMonster
Well-known member
I would agree with all of that, with emphasis on your third and fourth words…”3030 guru”. I do absolutely believe that by using a manual GB that a person CAN achieve a clearer signal, or a signal at all, at extreme depth. But only when VERY familiar with what they’re doing, it could easily cause problems if set wrong or the GB drifts when searching a place. This could obviously apply to various other machines, with differing degrees of negative effect.
IDXMonster
Well-known member
No kidding, the confusion on this one subject has really been an avoidable train wreck of sorts…
pulltabfelix
Well-known member
yes and apparently new CTX users like myself are still getting fooled. It is not surprising that people are still buying the CTX. Especially like me trying for 3 years to effectively use a Nox 800 in a highly trashy urban and suburban hunting areas. Atlanta has grown to 6,144,050 people and most of that growth is in north Atlanta. our parks are overloaded and that is good for us hunting rings, but bad because it is raining pop top, can slaw etc. It just overwhelmed the 800 and was impossible to hunt or rather find rings since you had to dig everything. At one park I dug up a square foot of dirt about 6" deep and found I think 5-6 pop tops and pull tabs and beaver tails. Even with my CTX3030 I have to use the 6" coil to have any chance of finding rings without digging everything. Still have to dig quite a bit.
Thanks live in area where the old stuff really sinks deeply in most spots but most areas extremely neutral so have never been comfortable messing with gb unless i can really see I may need to. As soon as I get taxes and hospital paid off will probably trade in for new 3030 and sell old one to dealer for parts. Got my moneys worth and come out better this way.
pulltabfelix
Well-known member
yeah, what I thought after using it like that for 5 months. Who wrote the CTX manual. They had since 2012 to make it a little more clearer. I am afraid to ask when did you buy your CTX?
pulltabfelix
Well-known member
I had the Nox 800 for 3 years, bought it in 2018. I kept playing around with a lot of the advanced settings without knowing much about the real reasoning or really understanding them. So I figured at least half the time, I was hunting with a de-tuned metal detector. The experienced people on these forums a basically said use the standard default setting until your get 100 hours or more on the 800. Ha, I thought not me, I am smart. well I know listed to the experienced detectorists on these forum especially the ones that use the same detector that I use. Even so I missed a couple of things on the CTX like enable ground balance check box and the little trick of using your pinpointing button to kill an accidental lengthy noise cancel. I must have done a 100 of those accidental noise cancel butten when I thought I was in another menu. The Nox 800 was a great machine, but not for my aluminum junky urban and suburban areas that I hunt. I guess we just have to laugh at ourselves sometimes or go crazy.
pulltabfelix
Well-known member
Back to the enable ground balance. Yes for about 5 months I was running the CTX with it checked. My hunting areas are all about the same in terms of mineralization. So after the initial hunt ground balance, I don't think it hurt me too much since I was finding good targets all along during that time period. Miss a deeper one? Maybe, but now I understand that ground balance enable check box and leave it off.
The documentation for the CTX3030 was probably written by an engineer. In the software world the worst person to write a manual is the software designer/programmer. They know too much about the software and are usually very terse with their instructions because they are taught to be very terse with their coding. There were judged by their peers on being able to write the absolute least amount of code to perform a function. Why? extra code slowed down the software execution. In the past when memory on computers was expensive the computers had limited amounts of expensive memory. So a program would have to swap parts of the code in from the disk drive and that is extremely slow compared to having the code resident in memory. Now it does not really matter that much on personal computers with lots of fast memory.
The documentation for the CTX3030 was probably written by an engineer. In the software world the worst person to write a manual is the software designer/programmer. They know too much about the software and are usually very terse with their instructions because they are taught to be very terse with their coding. There were judged by their peers on being able to write the absolute least amount of code to perform a function. Why? extra code slowed down the software execution. In the past when memory on computers was expensive the computers had limited amounts of expensive memory. So a program would have to swap parts of the code in from the disk drive and that is extremely slow compared to having the code resident in memory. Now it does not really matter that much on personal computers with lots of fast memory.
pulltabfelix
Well-known member
Andy explained the enable ground balance check box pretty good in his CTX book on page 47. I even underlined it and highlighted it with a yellow magic marker and then promptly forgot about it. I mean what is there to know about ground balance settings. Minelab had it checked by default, so all was well. Andy did a better explanation than Minelab did. In Clive's book on the CTX I could not find anything on the Enable Ground balance check box.