Now I know why I loved hunting with the CTX.

[pulltabfelix]

View attachment 20947Pulltabfelix,
Welcome, I fairly new myself to the CTX. About 3 years now. I’ve owned probably 10 machines since 1975. I quit coin hunting in 1981 and relic hunted till 3 years ago when I got the CTX and met Ironman. He and the CTX changed my hunting. I actually like coin hunting. The first time we really hunted together in a non relic site I dug 13 silver dimes out of one hole. All rosie’s. Next hunt A walker and 2 merc’s out of one hole. This machine is a silver machine. In the last month in trashy heavily hunted coin sites I found these . 1873 seated and a 1915 barber.
IDX MONSTER has great videos. Can you give me rattleheads YouTube name?

Happy Hunting
Keith

rattlehead on youtube is metal detecting NWGA

 

[pulltabfelix]

I’ve been watching you mister! I, for one, cannot WAIT to see YOUR initial reaction to this machine.

Well I love it an all its features. Had it for two weeks, playing with it on my backyard test garden, experimenting with different programs. Have taken it out about 5 times, some in my trashy, trashy park and some in 200 acres that has old relics back to 1840 (just no Civil War activity, so not expecting civil war relics, but you never can tell what soldiers brought home).

My trash to good targets ration from the Nox 800 has reversed. I now get about 5 coins and one piece of trash with the CTX in a very trashy park using different patterns, audio and target trace. On the nox it was probably about 10-20 pieces of trash per good target. Later I started hunting trashy parks with the 800 in the 4 Khz mode and that eliminated pull tabs and pop tops which was huge improvement.

But the 800 tells you that you have a lot of target by giving you meaningless jumble of TID #'s - Jumpy accurate numbers and a lot of averaged numbers which confused the heck out of me. And of course the 800's depth gauge was not of much use.

Target trace, FE-CO graphic display, audio bins using combined, depth really do a good job of telling you what is below your coil. Almost like a military radar screen. My gosh, adjusting combined audio tones is a piece of cake with Xchange2. On the 800 it was very confusing to me and not always simple like the CTX.

Check boxes on different settings is so nice to use. Also being able to adjust settings in real time is also pretty helpful when fine tuning your settings.

Still have some more training hours to log, but probably in the next week or two, I will move to my older parks and Civil War permissions.

I guess my learning struggles with my 800 paid off. This detector is rather easy for me to learn, just need to log in the training hours to feel more comfortable. I have all the menus down pat and can use them in the field with not too much trouble. Love the Xchang2 PC program.

Received the pro swing 45 harness and love it. No way can I hunt more than an hour without a harness. By the way that swing harness is very well designed and I hunted the other day for 2 hours with no issues.

My CTX3030 was new old stock. 4 years old, but brand new and I was able to register it and get the 3 years of warranty. Really like the WM10, and clip it to my left shoulder on the swing harness. Now when I try to hear my pinpointer I don't have to fumble with my ear phones. I only use the ear phones when there are some bad background noises like lawn mowers, leaf blower, corporate jets landing nearby, or street traffic near by. Yes, we have all these where I hunt in urban Atlanta areas.

Very happy with my purchase, and I didn't buy it on mass hype like I did the 800 back in March 2018. There is really not a thing I don't like about it.
The FE-CO display width is so much better than the 800 or the vanquish which does jam things up a bit and makes for difficult target ID'ing.

Glad you and rattlehead made such good videos of the CTX in action. It was a major factor in my decision to part with $1,400.00

John

 

[jkline]

I would read all of Elmy's posts about the etrac-- alot will carry over to the ctx. I might sell my ctx--haven't decided yet-- but if I swing it anymore, I'm going to run a very tight pattern based on E's 1-10 with groundcoin.

 

[IDXMonster]

Well I love it an all its features. Had it for two weeks, playing with it on my backyard test garden, experimenting with different programs. Have taken it out about 5 times, some in my trashy, trashy park and some in 200 acres that has old relics back to 1840 (just no Civil War activity, so not expecting civil war relics, but you never can tell what soldiers brought home).

My trash to good targets ration from the Nox 800 has reversed. I now get about 5 coins and one piece of trash with the CTX in a very trashy park using different patterns, audio and target trace. On the nox it was probably about 10-20 pieces of trash per good target. Later I started hunting trashy parks with the 800 in the 4 Khz mode and that eliminated pull tabs and pop tops which was huge improvement.

But the 800 tells you that you have a lot of target by giving you meaningless jumble of TID #'s - Jumpy accurate numbers and a lot of averaged numbers which confused the heck out of me. And of course the 800's depth gauge was not of much use.

Target trace, FE-CO graphic display, audio bins using combined, depth really do a good job of telling you what is below your coil. Almost like a military radar screen. My gosh, adjusting combined audio tones is a piece of cake with Xchange2. On the 800 it was very confusing to me and not always simple like the CTX.

Check boxes on different settings is so nice to use. Also being able to adjust settings in real time is also pretty helpful when fine tuning your settings.

Still have some more training hours to log, but probably in the next week or two, I will move to my older parks and Civil War permissions.

I guess my learning struggles with my 800 paid off. This detector is rather easy for me to learn, just need to log in the training hours to feel more comfortable. I have all the menus down pat and can use them in the field with not too much trouble. Love the Xchang2 PC program.

Received the pro swing 45 harness and love it. No way can I hunt more than an hour without a harness. By the way that swing harness is very well designed and I hunted the other day for 2 hours with no issues.

My CTX3030 was new old stock. 4 years old, but brand new and I was able to register it and get the 3 years of warranty. Really like the WM10, and clip it to my left shoulder on the swing harness. Now when I try to hear my pinpointer I don't have to fumble with my ear phones. I only use the ear phones when there are some bad background noises like lawn mowers, leaf blower, corporate jets landing nearby, or street traffic near by. Yes, we have all these where I hunt in urban Atlanta areas.

Very happy with my purchase, and I didn't buy it on mass hype like I did the 800 back in March 2018. There is really not a thing I don't like about it.
The FE-CO display width is so much better than the 800 or the vanquish which does jam things up a bit and makes for difficult target ID'ing.

Glad you and rattlehead made such good videos of the CTX in action. It was a major factor in my decision to part with $1,400.00

John

It’s great to know that you are getting along with it John, it’s a fabulous machine but not necessarily for everyone. IF you are the curious type and want to know everything about it, you will do well. It’s certainly not some kind of magic wand, not at all. It is a machine that typically runs very smoothly and is very capable of relaying the information in a comprehensive and intelligible way. That is the key…INTELLIGIBLE. That is also the reason I suggested setting up the machine like I did…you listen for ONE tone when looking for high conductors and you dig that range where the tone falls. That screen setup was actually very common to use shortly after the machine came out and made popular by Randy Horton and Evan Grainger. It’s the famous “Gone Hunting” setup, named after Evan whose YouTube name is/was Gone Hunting for History. Those guys realized right away that while the eTrac has Two Tone Ferrous which can be very effective, the operator can’t move the Ferrous line, it is stationary on that machine. Along comes the CTX with the “Combined” mode and BAM!….now you can. And you can move the rest of the bins around, much like the 800, but easier. It has been pure pleasure using the CTX, but a lot of time has also been invested to try to use and learn all it has. The videos are simply a “shortcut” for others who might just be starting out with it, and they’re fun to make(sometimes).
Dont get overly caught up in the detail to start, just run it stable so you understand what it’s saying. All you have to do is drive it around and dig a hole when it tells you to. That’s it. And the harness? Some people love it, some hate it. Personally I think the ProSwing harness is as good as it gets. Once you futz around with all the buckles and straps and get it fitted EXACTLY to YOUR body….it’s the premium harness you paid for.
Thanks for the update!

 

[sube]

I would read all of Elmy's posts about the etrac-- alot will carry over to the ctx. I might sell my ctx--haven't decided yet-- but if I swing it anymore, I'm going to run a very tight pattern based on E's 1-10 with groundcoin.

Tight patterns well loose some coins if you run a tight pattern leave it open and make all you do not want to hear 75hz.
The fe line well loose you coins too i set it at 31 or 32 if you have a nail = - dime =o such as same plane -o- 1/8 inch apart set at 28 fe line you well hear low low low if set at 31 or 32 you well hear low high low .
As you know the deeper the coin the higher the fe # the co # stays very well stable but mineral and being close to iron drives that fe # lower .
Apart from that one never knows what he's missing if you can't hear it. sube

 

[IDXMonster]

To clarify Sube’s post above…”mineral and iron nearby drive the fe# lower”….lower ON THE SCREEN, which means a higher numeric indication. On the CTX the Ferrous indication is arranged from 1 at the top of the screen to 35 at the bottom…so a higher NUMBER will indicate that it’s being driven lower ON THE SCREEN. He knows what he means, I know what he means, but just to clarify...

 

[pulltabfelix]

It’s great to know that you are getting along with it John, it’s a fabulous machine but not necessarily for everyone. IF you are the curious type and want to know everything about it, you will do well. It’s certainly not some kind of magic wand, not at all. It is a machine that typically runs very smoothly and is very capable of relaying the information in a comprehensive and intelligible way. That is the key…INTELLIGIBLE. That is also the reason I suggested setting up the machine like I did…you listen for ONE tone when looking for high conductors and you dig that range where the tone falls. That screen setup was actually very common to use shortly after the machine came out and made popular by Randy Horton and Evan Grainger. It’s the famous “Gone Hunting” setup, named after Evan whose YouTube name is/was Gone Hunting for History. Those guys realized right away that while the eTrac has Two Tone Ferrous which can be very effective, the operator can’t move the Ferrous line, it is stationary on that machine. Along comes the CTX with the “Combined” mode and BAM!….now you can. And you can move the rest of the bins around, much like the 800, but easier. It has been pure pleasure using the CTX, but a lot of time has also been invested to try to use and learn all it has. The videos are simply a “shortcut” for others who might just be starting out with it, and they’re fun to make(sometimes).
Dont get overly caught up in the detail to start, just run it stable so you understand what it’s saying. All you have to do is drive it around and dig a hole when it tells you to. That’s it. And the harness? Some people love it, some hate it. Personally I think the ProSwing harness is as good as it gets. Once you futz around with all the buckles and straps and get it fitted EXACTLY to YOUR body….it’s the premium harness you paid for.
Thanks for the update!

My big, big mistake with the 800 was I really didn't not know as much about metal detecting as I thought I did. I thought that using the AT Pro was as good as it gets and yes I found stuff with it. On the 800 I tried immediately to use every advanced feature and run it hot. That was the worst thing anyone could do with an 800. Yes I finally learned the 800 in 3 years of use, but wasted a lot of time running it incorrectly set up. I will not make that mistake on the CTX. I really do love learning new things and am enjoying learning with the CTX. I have complete confidence in the CTX and will just have bring my confidence using the machine along with use. Metal detecting to me is fun and gets me out of the house. Your videos and rattlehead's videos showed me what the CTX can do when used properly.

 

[sube]

Thanks for the reply idx never understood why more is less o well it is what it is . sube

 

[pulltabfelix]

Another question - someone said that as your target is deeper you encounter more mineralization because you are going through more dirt and may have to make some adjustments to account for that. It sounds reasonable, but is that true?

 

[sube]

Your machine well tell you how mineral is in the ground in auto sensitivity low numbers like 10 to 15 higher mineral 15 to 20 medium and low 20 to 30 it may take a few minutes for the machine to settle on the numbers.
High thrash and ground coin would be for mineral ferrous coin and low thrash for lower mineral so these are the adjustments i would make if any .They all work in any type of ground i have seen but you well get more falses running ferrous coin in hot ground compared to ground coin or high thrash . sube