I just picked up my CTX today! What is combined?

[beachdude]

Coming from an Etrac, and having read the manual a bunch of times, I think I have a handle on it for my first hunt tomorrow.

I hear everyone talking about 'combined' and see one line about it in the manual on how to select it. What is it? How do I use combined?

I have this brutal site that is packed with iron nails at various depths but has some very good targets in there to find. I was thinking of creating a two tone ferrous mode for that as it seemed to work OK with the Etrac. Would combined help me in a site like this?

Thanks

 

["Dr.Tones"]

Combined gives you the ability to assign your own tones to five individual boxes across your screen at whatever location you choose. For instance I have selected 12:11-12:16 to make a high tone so I don't miss nickels.

 

[JamesM]

As you found out when you read the manual, Combined is a tone profile..It is often referred to here as a mode, and is usually used with Ferrous Coin target separation . Combined will give you a separate bin for ferrous and 4 bins for conductive. You can size the bins for each conductive range, and also set a different tone pitch for each bin. I use it quite a bit, and like it. If you are familiar with TTF on the Etrac, this is like TTF on steroids. If you don't understand how to set it, I can email you a couple of my modes if you PM me your email addy. Also, I think there is a "Combined" mode available for download in the CTX Resource Center.

 

[GateKeeper]

Combined it like TTF on steroids. As you know with the CTX, there are 35 Ferrous lines and 50 Conductive lines. How combined works is this...... You have 5 bins. The bottom bin is for the iron ferrous line and below. Say you set your ferrous line at 20, anything below it would be a low iron sound such as in the TTF mode of the Etrac. Now the top 4 bins would be set in higher tones. Except that instead of hearing one high tone as in TTF, you have the option of setting those 4 bins at different frequencies and different sizes. You might set the first bin from 1-14 conductive at 350khz, then maybe the 2nd bin from 15-29 conductive at 500khz, then maybe the 3rd bin from 30-40 conductive at 900khz, and then the 4th bin from 41-50 at 1200khz. That's just an example. You can make the bins any size and sound. It's totally up to you on how you wish the program worked for you and your site. There are many examples of downloadable programs in the Resource Center from many of our experienced operators. I hope my short explanation helped, and welcome to the CTX 3030 forum.

 

[vancemetaldetecting.com]

RUN COMBINED, FERROUS COIN, TARGET TRACE AND PIN POINT TRACE ON.. SET YOUR TONES AND I LIKE TO RUN A DISC PATTERN IN PATTERN 1 AND WIDE OPEN IN PATTERN 2 COMING FROM AN ETRAC RUNNING THE CTX THAT WAY IS SIMILAR TO QUICKMASK....YOUR GONNA LOVE THIS MACHINE COMING FROM AN ETRAC BELEIVE YOU ME

 

[doc1964]

If you had TTF on he E-Trac dialed in - then running a combined tone mode on the CTX will make you very happy

 

[C&RHunter]

Combined is one of the 8 selections for Tone ID Profiles. The Tone ID Profile is one of the several settings that make up a Mode. A Mode has two discrimination pattern and one Tone ID Profile, along with some other mode specific settings. The Tone Id Profiles can be selected and tones assigned to suit your individual satisfaction. You can set tones to suit your hearing or for specific target ranges. In combined you have 4 bins for conductive and one for ferrous targets. The size of the bins are adjustable and can also set the tone for each bin to your liking. In Combined the ferrous bin will be the complete width of the screen and the range is from the 35 line to whatever lower numbered line you like. (Fe lines go from 1-35, and top of screen being the 1 line.) Attached are a couple of pics from my XChange2 app to show what I am trying to explain. I prefer to use XChange2 to setup Modes etc. but it can be done in the CTX...........HH

[attachment 265540 MedDisc-003.jpg]

 

[JamesM]

C&Rhunter,
I like the way that you have that pattern set up, but why do you have 1-2/49-50 disc out. I think I noticed the same thing on one of Larry's patterns. I have had silver halves hit in that range using high trash. I had one that went all the way to 50.

 

[C&RHunter]

James.....That is to help eliminate some false signals on some FE target wrap around.......I have had silver dollar readings on the 1 FE line (in high trash and low trash target separation) but not as high as a 49-50 on the CO scale. I never had a half dollar hit in the 49-50 CO range. I'm not saying it won't, especially in high and low trash target separation, but just hasn't for me. I found 2 walking Liberty halves with the CTX last fall and they were 48 on the CO scale. If you have had halves respond there by all means use whatever works for you. I'm in northern Missouri and my soil and location conditions my be totally different than yours. That is why it's so important to find what works for you at your sites and just not use someone else's Modes without tweaking or modifying them for your location. Someone else's Modes might work, but may work better for you with modifications................HH

 

[beachdude]

I understand the combined now, thanks everyone.

Does anything good ever hit on the 1-31 CO line? I had that line blocked in my Etrac after reading Goes4Ever's how to set up TTF, and I have set up my CTX the same way. He said that the FE falsing bounces happen diagonally from the bottom right to to top left.... I can always change it.

 

[JamesM]

I understand the combined now, thanks everyone.

Does anything good ever hit on the 1-31 CO line? I had that line blocked in my Etrac after reading Goes4Ever's how to set up TTF, and I have set up my CTX the same way. He said that the FE falsing bounces happen diagonally from the bottom right to to top left.... I can always change it.

I've never dug anything that hit up there...As for there being any good targets up there, I doubt it.

I'm going to try some disc up there, to see if it won't help with the falsing. I don't get a lot of falsing, and most of the time I can tell the difference, but sometimes they are just to good to pass up.