I've been hunting with my CTX now since the first part of November, so almost 6 months, coming from my first detector, an AT Pro. I have about 150 hours on my CTX now, and after some initial experimentation, and researching, I started hunting mostly in Ground Coin mode because our soil here in the NW is pretty highly mineralized. GC gives me the best target ID info. However during trial and error experimentation, scanning surface coins in my yard, and placing various ferrous items near a silver quarter, in GC mode the coil totally nulls out and I got nothing at all with a piece of iron about 2x2 1/2 inchs within 2 to 3 inches of the silver quarter. So I started experimenting more with Ferrous Coin mode. In ferrous coin I started experiencing exactly what Sube originally posted about. But in Ferrous Coin I can see two targets, while if hunting in Ground Coin I do not. I hunt quite a bit with discrimination, but also switch around to open screen a lot to help verify what I'm seeing. While hunting in FC my CTX so often shows a target in the lower right hand corner, the iron range, and another target in the mid/upper right corner in the 12:37 to 12:42 range, almost like it thinks there is always a penny underneath it while scanning. Ive been seeing this alot with the 17 inch coil too. My quest since buying this machine is to learn how to find coins mixed in with iron like so many here seem quite able and capable of doing, but my experience has been mainly digging a lot of bent nails. I have had a few finds of coins that had nails in the mix and thought I was on to something, however that has been the fluke more than the rule for me. I just can't seem to master this machine, it seems the more I learn the less I know hahahah! I love the machine though, so far I've found 13 silver coins since January of this year. They are not easy to come by here in NW Oregon! Deepest dime was at a true 9 inches and it had iron on both sides of it, I must of scanned that signal for 10 minutes because I thought it was just my normal infrequent but repetative good signal mixed in with iron signals. I was in ground coin for that one however and was more than a little surprised when out popped a 1958 rosie. It seems 9 times out of 10 when I get a repeatable, but not as frequent good target ID especially in silver range that it is just plain old iron or a nail fooling me and its become frustrating trying to learn to tell the difference but I am determined to master this thing. I'm at a loss for what to do or try at this point. I've experimented with my programs, mainly use a modified coin program in which I have lowered the amount of discrimination and lowered the ferrous line to 24. I also use another program set up in Ferrous Coin and switch between the two to help me better determine target vs iron in ground, and both programs have open screen to flip to. I've began hunting more and more with an open screen and I hunt about 50/50 now with auto +3, and manual up to around 27 max with saltwater on to help tame down the jitters as with my soil here the machine gets pretty unstable with manual settings so usually wind up falling back to auto mode.
I appreciate all the time everyone has taken posting so much great information about this detector and how to use it, I've been working hard at putting the information to good use, but still struggle to find silver, and am afraid that I am walking over good silver all the time and not hearing it because ground coin won't pick it up if there is iron near it, and Ferrous coin seems to false alot and always seems to indicate a 12:37 or so with iron just about all the time I'm scanning so it gets to the point that I just give up on it and go back to GC. I hope eventually I'll figure out what I'm doing with my detector, lord knows I've been putting in the hours on it! Thanks for all the info guys! HH
. I was detecting in memorial Day Park in South East san Diego. I pull at least 1 silver each time I go. The soil is heavy clay which is rare around here. I haven't tried Chollas Park but I do try to hit the older parks and have been fortunate to continue to find silver even when my detecting buddy tells me the park has been hunted out!! I love the challenge and the CTX!!!!!