Well I got to spend some more time with the CTX on the beach today. I was also lucky enough to have my hunting partner out with his new ctx which he picked up today. The first time out with the machine I was not really looking for deep targets, I was playing with various settings, getting used to the machine including gps capabilities, and looking for easy solid targets to mess around with and see how stable it was. The beaches here are pretty sanded in right now, have been all winter with the lack of storms, and with the water so cold fresh drops from the high tide line down to the water (where i hunt the most) have not started to really come around yet in any quantity. Today my focus was on deep targets, to see what this machine can do. Slowing down and seeing how it stacks up against my etrac and gt. Well as for the gt I had the opportunity to hunt right behind one today. When I showed up there was someone a beach over hunting the same area with a gt and a wot. I could not pass up the opportunity to go hunt the same area once he was gone to see if any deep targets were left. To my surprise I had no problem finding them. Everything I dug with the exception of a few targets was 3-4 scoops deep at least, and I have a pretty hefty scoop. I got a lot of pennies encrusted in thick black crud that had been there a long time. Some of the quarters I hit were so deep I actually started calling my buddy over to hear the signal and watch how far I had to dig to get to it. It was a blast. So one bad thing about what happened today was an issue I have never seen happen to the etrac. On several targets, with both ctx's, I actually found targets that could not be heard in pinpoint mode. You got it, the detector was actually out hunting its pinpoint capabilities. I thought I was crazy at first until I had my buddy confirm it. If you scraped away about an inch of sand from the surface the pinpoint would kick in. Without a doubt one problem people are going to have with this machine when hunting in the water is losing targets sinking due to the fact of how deep this detector can get them. I can not wait to get some waterproof headphones to try things out. The 17" coil will also be an interesting addition. The machine ran super stable today for me. When I first started out in the morning it was a little chattery but for some reason calmed right down. I was running 28-30 sensitivity all day, mostly 30, and the depth the unit got was impressive. Not just high tone targets, but targets down in the co2-10 range also. I am very happy with the performance of this machine on the beach. It is very solid and I don't think I could ask for more. Unfortunately no gold today, I again spent a significant amount of time on single targets changing various settings to see what would help make it sound better and what would make it sound worse. I actually found some setting changes to the machine which did the opposite of what I expected when playing around with some targets. No doubt with the playing I did I was able to get deep targets to sound better which increased my finds. I will post more on some of the settings findings after I get to do some more testing. Although nothing great came today below is a pic of some of the smaller items the ctx sniffed out, I must say I was also impressed with this stuff even though it was junk. The penny is just to give you an idea of their small size.
No one has been commenting on the depth capability of this machine yet but after today, with some tweaking, I know it does better than the GT with a wot and I am now pretty confident it did better than my etrac. I would love to put the two side by side on a hunt but I can honestly say, and I didn't think I would, my etrac will be accumulating some dust. I don't know that I really want to part with it at this point but I do not also see a need for it now with the ctx. Time will tell
Some details on settings that I did not mess around with: hunted discriminating out the bottom 6 ferrous lines and nothing else. Manual sensitivity of 28-30. Target trace and target pinpoint on. Just about every other setting I played with and tweaked to improve depth with some interesting results, more on that soon.
OH btw, it is awesome to be able to just spray the machine down after beach hunting and not have to worry about anything
No one has been commenting on the depth capability of this machine yet but after today, with some tweaking, I know it does better than the GT with a wot and I am now pretty confident it did better than my etrac. I would love to put the two side by side on a hunt but I can honestly say, and I didn't think I would, my etrac will be accumulating some dust. I don't know that I really want to part with it at this point but I do not also see a need for it now with the ctx. Time will tell
Some details on settings that I did not mess around with: hunted discriminating out the bottom 6 ferrous lines and nothing else. Manual sensitivity of 28-30. Target trace and target pinpoint on. Just about every other setting I played with and tweaked to improve depth with some interesting results, more on that soon.
OH btw, it is awesome to be able to just spray the machine down after beach hunting and not have to worry about anything
-------Del