CTX 3030 Combined Mode Ferrous line

[Digger]

If I had my fe line set at 35 I would not hear any iron at all just nulls because that would be the top of the bottom bin right ? .so the top conductive bins would go all the way down to the 35 fe line correct ?

Setting your FE line at 35 in Combined would be very similar to running in 4-tone Conductive. The exception would be......if a specific target's properties had not been discriminated out, the ONLY ferrous targets you would hear would be those with an FE reading of exactly 35 (inside the lower bin). If the ferrous reading is less than 35, (above the lower bin) you will hear the audio tone represented by that target's conductive properties.

As to nulling.....if you were in a totally "open" screen (zero discriminate), you should not hear any nulling. If, however, you had discriminated out the notches representing those specific target properties, those rejected targets will silence the threshold and not provide an audio tone.

 

[Overvoltage]

For example, if there were a target that registered 18/34, and you had the FE line set at 17, the target would provide the audio response associated with that lower bin. However, if you raised the FE line to 16, and changed nothing else, that same target would provide the audio response associated with one of the bins above the line. Which bin (above the line) would depend on how you had set up the vertical parameters of the four bins. If you had set them as bin 1 = CO 1 - CO 14; bin 2 = CO 15 - CO 25; bin 3 = CO 26 - CO 36; bin 4 = CO 37 - CO 50, then that 18/34 target would give you the audio tone associated with bin 3 (left to right), above the line.

Digger, referencing the above quote, with the FE line set at 17 and an open screen, a 18/34 target would in deed provide the audio response of the lower bin. However, because the target has an FE value of 18, raising the FE from 17 to 16 (moves line up on screen) would not change the fact that the target falls in the lower audio bin. To move it (the target) into an upper audio bin up you would have to set the audio line somewhere above 18, say "19" (remember, the higher the number the lower the line is on them screen) the tone would then fall in bin 3 per your example because FE18 (target FE value) would now be above the line.

 

[Digger]

You are correct. Guess I didn't proofread my post. I should have said 19 instead of 16. I'll make the change so as to not confuse folks. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. HH Randy

 

[sube]

I think I am confusing screen 1 with screen 2 in screen 1 stock coin mode which Randy has show en on the previous page everything below line 18 and some of 17 and 16 are disc out that meaning you will not hear anything correct ? a null or silents in the threshold .
Okay with that out of the way when you set the fe line on the second screen the first screen also gets changed to the same setting , now going back to the first screen your setting is the same fe line as the second screen , does this have any bearing on how the first screen will operate now .


Pattern One as wide open (zero discrimination). I set Pattern two the same way except for having a good amount of discrimination ( Randy are these reversed )
So getting back to screen 2 what is the differences as to where the fe line is set I understand that any item with a reading of say 25 or higher will give me a reading of the top bin and anything below will give me a reading of the bottom bin .
So that said what will be the audio response difference between the two . Say the #s would read 24.45 above the 25 fe line what would the audio and #s read below the 25 fe line .
I hope this is clear I think I am confusing myself more . sube

 

[foreign object]

If you set your FE line at 25 anything higher , 24-45 will give off the tone you assigned to the conductive bin. Anything below the FE 25 line would have a fe number of 26 to 35. say 26-45 will give off the tone you assigned to the ferrous bin.
One thing to remember is that just because it is call the ferrous bin does not mean all targets below your FE line will be ferrous.

Your earlier post about running your FE line at 24 seemed to give a clearer signals mirrors my findings also. I mentioned that in a post several months.

The combined mode of the CTX is one of its strong points over the Etrac as you can adjust the FE line to suit yourself and or site conditions. I have mild soil here and rarely have fe numbers drop below 17 on coin type targets.Deep or next to iron. I am sure that under some conditions it can/will happen but seldom for me.

My short time with the Etrac working side by side with the CTX really showed how unstable the fe numbers were with the Etrac often getting really high fe numbers and bouncing co numbers. I think that is part of the reason so many think that they also need those higher FE line setting. 24 to 30 or what ever. The CTX is so much more stable.

I am mostly a silver coin hunter and most of the spots I have to hunt are not real old and for the most part anything earlier than 1935 will not be there. Don't really care to dig nickles but do love those indian heads so I do have a program set up for locations that should produce them.

With everything said above I mostly run a wide open screen and combined ferrous coin.
I set my FE line to 20 - 24 and my last conductive bin 38 to 50 high tone. The three other conductive bins I set to the same medium tone. (I do have other programs set up different for when needed or wanted)

I have found that using those tone breaks that I will get a high tone on a lot of targets that the fe or co numbers have been pulled down for different reasons. The high tone alerts me and makes be stop and investigate and with a little better coil control the CXT will lock in with more stable accurate numbers.

 

[sube]

Foreign object In regards to this ?. I think I am confusing screen 1 with screen 2 in screen 1 stock coin mode which Randy has show en on the previous page everything below line 18 and some of 17 and 16 are disc out that meaning you will not hear anything correct ? a null or silents in the threshold .
Okay with that out of the way when you set the fe line on the second screen the first screen also gets changed to the same setting , now going back to the first screen your setting is the same fe line as the second screen , does this have any bearing on how the first screen will operate now .
What do you think . sube

 

[foreign object]

The only thing that you can change between pattern one and pattern two is the discrimination. Any change to the bins on one screen is applied to the 2nd screen and they will operate the same except for any disc you may apply to either.


Hope that I answered your question.

FO

 

[Digger]

Sube, here is one I posted in the Classroom back in June 2012. Notice the difference in discrimination between Pattern one and Pattern two.

Old coins at old sites ** Ferrous Coin Separation with Combined Audio Profile

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?87,1734116,1734116#msg-1734116

 

[sube]

Thanks Digger .sube

 

[huntindog1]

This all is good info from everyone, really makes a person think about how it all works.

I want to point out to anyone that are beginners to the CTX.

Moving the Ferrous Line up or down as coins are supposed to fall on the 12 line in a perfect situation. But in reality there could be iron close to the good target.
This will fool the CTX a little and the CTX will report the coin which is next to the iron could be like a 14 or a 15 or a 16 on the ferrous line instead of the perfect situation 12.

I think early on people when using the Combined mode did not want to throw good coins (next to iron) into that bottom bin so they raised their ferrous line number to like 20 or 21 on up from from like a 16 or 17.

As getting a response of a coin next to iron as being in that bottom bin the person would not dig it thinking its iron junk.

So somewhere down the line people started raising that ferrous line number to like 23 24 25 etc.. think more is better, or maybe not better, or who knows.

What I am hearing is that with a higher number like the setting of a 25 instead of 17 for the ferrous line the CTX sounds off better on a coin laying close next to iron.

 

[pghmole]

24 is optimum in my area,never had anything over a 24 turn out to be a good target...e trac was the same also...24!and we're in the steel buckle of the iron belt So We Have Some Seriously Infested sites...And iron is The main Reason My Area Holds More Silver Than most!

 

[flyguy784]

Digger and foreign object, I think everyone is confusing where they are setting the line for the bottom tone bin as opposed to where they are setting the discrimination line. For example, using the photo that Digger posted, the line for the low tone bin is set at 18 whereas he has the discrimination set at 17. What SUBE is saying is that with discrimination set up to say 17 you could get nulling and causing the good target to be masked. SUBE, I kind of disagree with the nulling theory. The CTX with its ability to see multiple targets and its superior discrimination abilities in my experience has no problem identifying good targets both with tone and TID while discriminating the higher FE junk. With an open screen, setting the lower bin line at say FE17 is only going to make any target at FE17 or higher sound at whatever tone you have the bottom tone bin set at, not nulling.

Man am I glad I read the rest of this post. As I am trying to learn this machine, I read SUBE's post and got totaly confused. I thought I had figured this part out (as overvoltage stated) but reading SUBE's write up I thought OH NO, I still don't have it right. I kept thinking, I thought the FE line had nothing to do with nulling but I must be wrong. Thanks Overvoltage for giving me relief and thanks for your military service.

 

[Bell-Two]

Digger and foreign object, I think everyone is confusing where they are setting the line for the bottom tone bin as opposed to where they are setting the discrimination line. For example, using the photo that Digger posted, the line for the low tone bin is set at 18 whereas he has the discrimination set at 17. What SUBE is saying is that with discrimination set up to say 17 you could get nulling and causing the good target to be masked. SUBE, I kind of disagree with the nulling theory. The CTX with its ability to see multiple targets and its superior discrimination abilities in my experience has no problem identifying good targets both with tone and TID while discriminating the higher FE junk. With an open screen, setting the lower bin line at say FE17 is only going to make any target at FE17 or higher sound at whatever tone you have the bottom tone bin set at, not nulling.

Man am I glad I read the rest of this post. As I am trying to learn this machine, I read SUBE's post and got totaly confused. I thought I had figured this part out (as overvoltage stated) but reading SUBE's write up I thought OH NO, I still don't have it right. I kept thinking, I thought the FE line had nothing to do with nulling but I must be wrong. Thanks Overvoltage for giving me relief and thanks for your military service.

The FE line no matter where it is set does not cause nulling , only discrimination causes nulling. If you run with no discrimination it never nulls, the change in the FE line just adjusts at what point you will hear the iron grunt.

 

[flyguy784]

Exactly.

 

[sube]

Flyguy784 Quote ( Foreign object In regards to this ?. I think I am confusing screen 1 with screen 2 in screen 1 stock coin mode which Randy has show en on the previous page everything below line 18 and some of 17 and 16 are disc out that meaning you will not hear anything correct ? a null or silent in the threshold .
Okay with that out of the way when you set the fe line on the second screen the first screen also gets changed to the same setting , now going back to the first screen your setting is the same fe line as the second screen , does this have any bearing on how the first screen will operate now .
What do you think ).

Sorry about that I was confusing screen 1 with screen 2 .
Screen 1 factory set with disc will null on anything that's has the blue segments filled in .
My confusion was when I set the fe line on #2 screen was that #1 screen would have it set the same as 2 .
say I set it at 25 on the #2 screen #1 screen would also be set at 25 .
But it did not change anything but the fe line on #1 screen , sense #1 screen is still disc out from 18 to 35 and some of 17 and 16 you will here a null or silent from some of line 16 and 17 and complete null from 18 to 35 . sorry about that sube

 

[Wayfarer]

Moving the Ferrous Line up or down as coins are supposed to fall on the 12 line in a perfect situation. But in reality there could be iron close to the good target.
This will fool the CTX a little and the CTX will report the coin which is next to the iron could be like a 14 or a 15 or a 16 on the ferrous line instead of the perfect situation 12.

I think early on people when using the Combined mode did not want to throw good coins (next to iron) into that bottom bin so they raised their ferrous line number to like 20 or 21 on up from from like a 16 or 17.

As getting a response of a coin next to iron as being in that bottom bin the person would not dig it thinking its iron junk.

So somewhere down the line people started raising that ferrous line number to like 23 24 25 etc.. think more is better, or maybe not better, or who knows.

What I am hearing is that with a higher number like the setting of a 25 instead of 17 for the ferrous line the CTX sounds off better on a coin laying close next to iron.

The Mode we are talking about here and this whole thread is 'High Trash' not 'Ferrous Coin,' right? Just wanted to make that clear since in Ferrous Coin the Fe numbers are much more likely to be brought to the '12' line, and in fact are almost always there regardless of the Fe number in High Trash. It almost seems to render the Fe number meaningless since it's almost always a '12' and you can pretty much leave the Fe line at the stock 17.

In High Trash, the Fe number bounces around a lot more and seems to be conveying a lot more information.

 

[amberjack]

one thing is for sure the CTX is not an etrac they are nothing alike in regards to hunting around iron.

infact they are the complete opposite in my view the etrac tries to bring silver coins to the 12 line, and the CTX tries to bring iron to the 12 line. am I crazy no I think not the CTX tries to make everything a silver coin if that's what you're hunting in iron sites, the trick is understanding the tones which I did not like after the etrac but now with nearly 3 years of using the CTX I understand for me what I am trying to accomplish with the CTX and with the help of the bins a near open screen and the information on the screen I can not remember the last piece of iron I dug, might sound like contradiction but its not CTX wants to find silver in iron so it does its best to live on the edge and that's why it tries to bring iron into the silver range what's that saying its a fine line between pleasure and pain, well the CTX walks that line and with some time behind the wheel it does it very well.

I use an almost open screen always except for a 1 dot line around the edge of the screen and is open above where silver would fall on the co line.

pretty well documented I don't like minelab was banned from here for 12 months or more and this is not an add for minelab its my experience with it, other than testers I had probably the 1st machine in Australia and well it is good at what its made for no 2 ways about it, again it really does pain me to say this but minelab make the best machine for finding deep silver and digging very little junk but hey we paid big money and so it bloody should

I have my bins set for Australian silver and always run in FE coin after all that's why I bought the bloody thing.

so do with this information as you choose and like I tell my mate all the info from the detector which ever one it is doesnt matter has to pass through the most complicated computer on the face of the earth the human brain and they are all different so its more about brain training than anything else this detecting game

AJ

 

[Jason in Enid]

one thing is for sure the CTX is not an etrac they are nothing alike in regards to hunting around iron.

infact they are the complete opposite in my view the etrac tries to bring silver coins to the 12 line, and the CTX tries to bring iron to the 12 line.

AJ

This really depends on what mode you are hunting in. The FE-Coin mode really does try to normalize everything to the 12 line. The audio profile changes that too, 50 conductive spreads targets much more than combined.

 

[huntindog1]

The Mode we are talking about here and this whole thread is 'High Trash' not 'Ferrous Coin,' right? Just wanted to make that clear since in Ferrous Coin the Fe numbers are much more likely to be brought to the '12' line, and in fact are almost always there regardless of the Fe number in High Trash. It almost seems to render the Fe number meaningless since it's almost always a '12' and you can pretty much leave the Fe line at the stock 17.

In High Trash, the Fe number bounces around a lot more and seems to be conveying a lot more information.

My original post was about using Combined mode and Ferrous Coin.

After reading more on this subject and even going back and reading up on the ETRAC Two Tone Ferrous setting (TTF).

The power of the combined mode is being able to use no discrimination as the discrimination, some think, will blank out a good target laying real close to iron.

You need to hear the iron next to the good target. Plus the 4 tones you can set lets you categorize the sound to the coins your hearing how you like. Plus the 5th tone of the ferrous bin.

But like I read some where high trash setting in the 50 conductive tone mode will sound off on the weaker desired signal and ignore a more powerful signal from the discriminated un-desirable signal.

Seems like people like the combined mode better and ferrous coin.

Anyone out there care to speak of how they like combined mode using 50 conductive tones, or can the detector even do that ?

 

[foreign object]

If you are running a wide open screen ferrous coin has no advantage as you have nothing disc.out.