CTX 3030 programs

There are many different pattern and tonal mode combinations. Really depends on the desire targets. Gold rings are often low conductors - but so is foil. Nickels are in the same zone as some bottle caps and pull-tabs.

But, generally, you use an open screen (or nearly so) as Pattern1. The more disc the less sensitivity to low conductors - the effect with even a little disc can be dramatic (meaning - with disc the detector can become gold dead. The CTX is already struggling with low conductors, lose more sensitivity and woman's rings are gone. It's main transmit power is at 3.125kHz, which isn't going to excite low conductors to respond much, i.e., drive eddies. That's great in reducing reaction from iron, but not good with jewelry. The harmonic at 25kHz has much less xmit power. Those are the two xmit freqs the CTX uses - so small gold will be missed if it is a bit deeper).

By the way, noise channel11 will raise the xmit freq by about 10% (and channel01 lowers it by 10%. Channel06 is uncorrected). On the one hand it may help to have Ch11 set to improve low conductor reaction, might help with jewelry - but on the other, the offset is meant to avoid interfering freqs from the surroundings (may not be an issue in the woods, ghost towns, or farmlands, or in the morning before people start using EMI producing machines). The risk of not using auto noise cancel (and setting it manually) is that the signal-to-noise ratio can drop and radio interference will cause erratic operations. Otherwise, it may be worth a try (some people think so anyway - but it is a very minor freq shift. Gold detectors, where gold is a very weak conductor use > 40kHz freq, even one at 71kHz (GB2) and 82kHz Gemini3). But most general detectors use 7.2 -19kHz range. So, a 2.78kHz increase should have minimal effect - but worth investigating).

Pattern2 is normally selected to include more disc to eliminate nails and/or trash items expected at the hunting site. The heavy disc patterns you see are for cherry picking high conductors. The more restricted the open areas become the more likely you'll be walking past deeper high conductors (which tend to be below (higher FE values) the expected 12Fe line). Those disc'd areas produce no audio, so use it judicially. For those looking for low conductors too (like rings & jewelry) the best pattern will need to allow trash too (open < 15Co - that's where rings hide) and also be limited in overall disc usage (to maintain detector sensitivity - though in trashy sites you have to maintain sanity too).

The tones are set for personal preference - but generally the desired target gets the high tone bin (usually narrowed around its common Fe-Co values).

Many choose two-tone ferrous (2TF). Set where everything with low Fe values (such as < 25Fe) will produce a high tone (you'll get high tones on most good targets plus trash items too).

Some parks and relic hunting involves tones of nails strewn about. 2TF in nails can have problems. The iron can cause high conductors like coins to respond with high Fe values, similar to the nail. It was found that in 2TC/4TC, or Multi-conductive (MTC), the med-high to high conductors, like coins (not nickels), will respond with a high tone where 2TF will not respond. If you use the conductive modes, any low-conductive rings should be double checked (e.g. set 4TC for high tone in the low conductive zone where thin rings hide).

Ferrous-coin mode is best used in non-mineralized soils or nail-free soils. Ferrous-coin is prone to audio nulls in nail beds and mineralized soils. Suggest using Ground-coin instead in those circumstances.

Use Auto+3 sensitivity for hunting recent drops and coins within the top 4-6". If you are serious about getting the deeper coins (6-12") and low conductors (even near the surface), switch to manual sensitivity. Generally, the CTX becomes more sensitive than Auto+3 when Manual Sensitivity > 15. Manual is quirky/sparky as it is more unstable, introducing more noise (lower sig/noise ratio), but it is much deeper. On the beach where coins are near-surface Auto+3 is fine (and quiet). If small jewelry is included at the beach, it might improve your chances using Manual. If you have the time, grid-hunt in Auto+3 and then re-search in Man+30 to pick-out anything missed.

Recall the sensitivity arrangement: left value is highest sensitivity available (out of 2 freqs used plus ground, called channels) or if in manual the left value is the sensitivity you've set. The right value is the suggested sensitivity (an average of all channels) from the detector's algorithm.
CTXSensitivity.jpg

When the soil is mineralized/iron-strewn, expect the suggested sensitivity to be low (use it as your guide). The greater the difference between the manual set value (left) and suggested (right), the more likely noise will be a problem. If it is too sparky in manual, drop the manual sens value down until it is more stable.

One note on manual vs. auto choices. Iron has a permeability > 1, and will drive the magnetic lines of flux (from the coil) through it's length. With nails in a preferred horizontal resting position the coil's field will be spread wide but gain little depth. The same thing goes for magnetite layers (horizontal bars). Depth will be greatly reduced. Increasing the sensitivity has little to no effect on increasing depth in that case (may only increase unwanted response from nails, especially when wet). So, sometimes it is best to take it easy and back down the sensitivity - a more stable detector is easier to locate true audio responses from those conductive tones.

You can see the difference with sensitivity between Auto and Man from the diagram below (all things being equal).

CTXampETRACDimeDepth.jpg


There are many, many patterns/tonal combinations ... just take a moment and think about the targets you are trying to 'capture' and design your own pattern/tonal arrangement for your type of hunting. If you are starting out, first try 50-conductive tones with no disc pattern. It will give you the full range of tones and responses. Once you've hunted with this set-up for about 40 hours - your ears will be acclimated to the CTX and how targets good and bad respond (it'll be tough at times but worth it). Then start playing with patterns/tones - you've earned it.

1-11b.jpg

12-22b.jpg

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Sensory overload! LOL!

This may sound stupid but coming from a beginner in only having used analog beep and dig Tesoro machines prior. It's a shorter learning curve as I don't have any habits formed of previous machines beforehand. It confirms what you told me to do yesterday, which was to go to an open window to hear the iron grunt in conjunction with the high pitch that was feeding back through my coin program from big iron objects.

Jackalope, thank you.

One program I don't have is the UK ghost program. Apparently, the Minelab forum wants you to pay before you are eligible to download programs from their site ?I probably don't need it, I just need to put hours behind the machine.Thsi thread has been a great help in addition to being fortunate enough to be able to hunt with Choppa.
 
With those kinds of graphics,,,smells of Johhny Anglo.

Yep

One program I don't have is the UK ghost program.

I have 77 fairly popular .mlf programs placed in a spreadsheet so patterns/tones/settings are easily reviewed. They are all different and yet not really. If I interchanged patterns (1 & 2) and mixed-up tone profiles I'd have nearly a half-million combinations.

But all you need is one program that works for you. Most programs switch between a low disc or no disc pattern1 and a more aggressive disc pattern2.

1. Low disc: Many patterns only disc iron along 35Fe line and leave it at that. Some add more along the bottom (bottom 30Fe-35Fe). The goal is to quiet nails without using too much disc.

2. Low disc + bottom-right corner: The next-level low disc patterns has Low disc, but adds disc in the bottom-right corner in various amounts. You might avoid some trash (like a steel bolt) but you'd likely miss a 1943 steel cent (35Fe, 43Co), or a copper-plated steel two UK pence coin, or a Canadian steel quarter, dime, or Canadian $1 steel coin (Fe33, Co48). You have to play the odds. How likely are these coins over-against a nasty square nail strewn area (nail is about 34Fe, 45Co) or a bunch of rusty iron bolts (Fe33, 46Co)?

In neutral soil, there isn't much good targets below about 15Fe. When good targets are down-averaged due to iron we can say there isn't much good targets beyond ~20Fe. There will be some conditions where that isn't true - but in the main as Fe values rise the probabilities drop exponentially for recovering anything that isn't rusty iron or steel. Since not much lives there - choosing a tonal pattern that low-tones below say 20Fe means you can save the extra disc - just ignore the low-tones.

That means you can probably dispense with the low-disc + corner patterns, they aren't going to add much (extra disc isn't helping your sensitivity to low-conductors, if you don't need, it don't use it).

3. Low-disc plus top-right: This option adds a bit of disc along the Fe01 from say 20Co-34Co to silence nails (some parts of bent nails are conductive and hit in this area). Be careful: beyond 35Co you are in large silver territory (silver dollars, half-dollars, silver rings, silver quarters around Fe01-04, Co36-49). Though pointy iron nails will ping in this area too, it isn't worth risking missing the silver.

4. Top-left disc'd zone: You'll see blocks of disc used in the upper-left to upper-center. There isn't much good that lives in this area. From 01-08Fe to Co34, this zone is void of good conductors (may find a brass button hidden in there along with plenty of junk like bottle caps). What to do?

Unfortunately, there is no good way without using disc. Combined mode lets you set the bottom bin at ~20Fe (everything > 20Fe is low-tone) and the first bin(s) (on left) to low tone too. Then all high Fe values (>20Fe) and low Co values (< 15Co) can be low-tones. The problem is that earrings, most rings, trinkets, chains, and pendants run along the ~12Fe line out to 15Co, and now they are also low-tones. ML doesn't have a pattern arrangement that isolates the upper-left without affecting good targets (examine 2TF, 4TF, 2TC, 4TC, etc., no pattern is without fault). So if you don't want to hear crown caps - disc this area.

5. The disc-everything but known good conductors pattern: These patterns use tons of disc and only exclude areas along the 12Fe line, give or take. They may disc everything except silver coins for instance, or leave a spot open for nickels, etc. They are designed for cherry-picking coins. They assume the soil is neutral-middle mineralized, as down-averaged coins can take them into the disc'd zone if it's too narrow (some are very restrictive). I'd say these pattern are fine for their intended purpose, but I want to hear more. They can be problematic when iron falses out of the disc'd area into the narrow open zones. These little tonal blips sound like a good target and can be distracting (you'd know it was garbage if the screen were open and you could hear the predominate iron low-tone). You can set this as your 2nd pattern - for when you're ears are tired of listening and you just want to cherry pick coins. With all that disc your hopes of finding low-conductive jewelry isn't very high - probably nil. But that's OK because you aren't interested in low conductors - just those silver coins.


If you've followed along up to this point you've seen there are 5 patterns used over-and-over. You can hunt primarily with an Low disc (#1) or No Disc hunting patterns and you'll be OK.

You can add disc to the bottom-right (#2) but it isn't really necessary.

It might be wise to add a touch of disc in the top-right (#3) for wrap-around nails (they give a truncated high tone that can be bothersome).

There is no good way to silence the top-left quadrant (#4) without using disc. Most of the hits will be near the very top (01-03Fe), which spreads out to ~30Co, it's a large area of bottle cap zone. There is a second high probability area for junk/bottle tops from 01Fe-10Fe, 05Co-13Co. That square area is an unhappy zone for junk - disc it out too.

If you like cherry-picking, set a 2nd pattern (#5) with high-disc and have fun.

Once you have the lower-disc pattern1 and crazy high-disc pattern2 arranged, pick a tonal mode that makes you happy.

Do you want to divide the tones into two (TTF, TTC), four (4TF, 4TC), five (Combined), or hear all tones possible (50TC)? You can't go wrong here. Just have fun - set the bins to isolate the good targets you care most about. I recommend hearing all the tones until you get used to the CTX.

While there is an infinite number of arrangements, you are likely to end up with some pattern mix between #1-5 above.

I like combined mode to give low-tone to iron (bottom bin > 20Fe) and set the other 4 bins like this:

Upper-Bin1: With combined you can set bin1 (the upper-left bin) to a med-low tone to differentiate it from iron. If you don't extend bin1 past ~05Co you have a tonal difference that alerts you to low-conductor hits (foil & rings)

Upper-Bin2: 05Co to 10Co low tone.
Upper-Bin3: 10Co to 14Co to hit nickels, med-high tone.
Upper-Bin4: >14Co high tone for most good stuff

Anyway - don't pay money to get patterns and tones ... you don't need it. The CTX let's you be creative so experiment with settings. Have fun. Thanks for reading all this - or skimming, or skipping to the end, whichever.

Jackalope
 
Well it was 13 degrees and I got out for a bit. It is suppose to be colder tomorrow so I felt obligated to go today.I used an open window, +3 on sens, ferrous coin and dug everything for there weren't a lot of stuff in the ground. One nickel read 09.09-09.12.It was 8" deep, maybe pushing 9.I don't think I 've ever dug a nickel that deep before. The blade on the Schrade old timer knife looks good yet.:cold2:DSCN0068.JPG I also picked a first silver although it is not much, I seldom catch silvers so its a good day despite the frigid temps.DSCN0076.JPG
 
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do you get it to work with windows 10, since i will need to know ?

Yes it works with windows 10. If you have troubles, pm me and I'll try help you get through them.Mostly you might have trouble with windows 10 converting them to a zip file, you need them as a MLF file to transfer to the exchange 2 program.
 
Yes, good quality and fits like a glove.I just got it yesterday. My T2 cover has just arrived in NY international service center, looking at another 4 business days to get here.....
 
Got out again today. My camera is giving me some troubles but here is a picture.I also found a 1923 wheatie,1964 dime and newer clad along with the 1891 Indianhead. I have another camera coming from the big auction site. DSCN0122.JPG
 
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I am still learning this CTX. Where I am hunting, there is a ton of iron in the ground. One thing I have been doing is as of late is to verify by switching to ground coin mode from ferrous coin mode. The signal is not as good but if it is repeatable in ground coin, there has been a coin there instead of bent nails or off centered iron pieces....I like long tone, deep recovery. Smooth tone blends the targets, sounds like an emergency vehicle running through an intersection. I can only take so much before I need a break from the sounds.I still don't have enough time on the machine to be comfortable with what I'm processing from what it's telling me. What I've done is opened the bottom to hear the nulled iron signals in conjunction with the coin targets, Even in my discriminating pattern. It's a busy pattern but I think I can distinguish targets better although there is iron grunts with nearly every high tone sound, I need to pick up enough clad and buy a 6" coil for it.
 
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