When I first started hunting the CTX at the salt water beach I was very happy with its performance in the wet sand. It seemed more stable than my etrac even cranked up. Well the water has warmed up and I have been wondering in a bit deeper and having a lot of issues. Once the water gets more than half way up the shaft the machine gets very temperamental especially when waves come along. I have seen some of Max's post about the topic but am curious if anyone else has had any luck. The settings that seem the best to me so far are ground coin, fast on, normal tones. I like to run in manual, I think ML's usual auto settings are way to conservative, but even on them with -3 the machine still seems erratic. I have had manual all the way down to 16-18 at some points. I usually run with the lower 7 ferrous lines disc'd out. Also I have tried 50 and 4 tone settings. I have made a custom disc screen below that really quiets things down but it pretty much will take all platinum and small gold out of the mix which I do not like. Anyone else having any luck.
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CTX in ocean waves and deeper water, chattery...
- Thread starter spdnj
- Start date
spdnj said:When I first started hunting the CTX at the salt water beach I was very happy with its performance in the wet sand. It seemed more stable than my etrac even cranked up. Well the water has warmed up and I have been wondering in a bit deeper and having a lot of issues. Once the water gets more than half way up the shaft the machine gets very temperamental especially when waves come along. I have seen some of Max's post about the topic but am curious if anyone else has had any luck. The settings that seem the best to me so far are ground coin, fast on, normal tones. I like to run in manual, I think ML's usual auto settings are way to conservative, but even on them with -3 the machine still seems erratic. I have had manual all the way down to 16-18 at some points. I usually run with the lower 7 ferrous lines disc'd out. Also I have tried 50 and 4 tone settings. I have made a custom disc screen below that really quiets things down but it pretty much will take all platinum and small gold out of the mix which I do not like. Anyone else having any luck.
Some of the beaches I hunt have big variability with salt matrix. I have brought the sensitivity down to 13 to 14 in manual. I find the best way to do this is to keep hunting while single tapping the sensitivity (down lower each tap) until the machine quiets down. I like to ride my sensitivity with a little falsing (maybe one slight false ever 5 steps max). If the falses start happening every footstep I turn the sensitivity down. When I have done this I have seen no loss in depth. I noticed when I hunted in Auto recently that the machine was autos setting anywhere from 14 to 24. At the end of my hunt the machine became chattery and I moved to 13 and the machine was fine.
Charles (Upstate NY)
Well-known member
CTX was very stable in the water and on the sopping wet sand at low tide 3-4 weeks ago when....wait for it...the lower beach was flat. Up the beach away from the water where the beach was sloped it was unstable and subject to falsing. Lately the lower beach is sloped not flat and slopes right into the water a good ways and my CTX has become quite unstable. A narrow parallel band near the water is virtually not huntable as you get a constant signal. Waves washing over the coil product falsing as well, its worse when the coil is parallel to the wave vs at a right angle to the wave with the wave washing over the coil from front to rear. I have been dealing with this situation by using long tones and simply ignoring all the falsing as a false tends to be short and abrubt even in long tones vs a real target which is big and wide when swept. Still its quite annoying.
Here's the thing, if I have to lower the CTX sensitivity way down into the teens to deal with the falsing in/near the water, switch to normal tones, and make these adjustments then I may as well I may as well just use an Excal which are rock solid stable in salt water when adjusted properly.
Another thing I have noticed that has changed in the last few weeks is a few weeks ago we had a nice thick sand base where now the lower slope and into the water has a very thin layer of sand in some areas with a thick layer of broken shell just under a few inches of sand. The CTX doesn't seem to like this at all. My suggest is Minelab needs to take a CTX and some test equipment back into the field and tweak their tuning for beach hunting, just my 2 cents worth.
Given the right beach conditions though the CTX is one deep mother. I was up in the dry sand this evening looking for a ladies lost wedding band and dug another mega deep clad dime.
Here's the thing, if I have to lower the CTX sensitivity way down into the teens to deal with the falsing in/near the water, switch to normal tones, and make these adjustments then I may as well I may as well just use an Excal which are rock solid stable in salt water when adjusted properly.
Another thing I have noticed that has changed in the last few weeks is a few weeks ago we had a nice thick sand base where now the lower slope and into the water has a very thin layer of sand in some areas with a thick layer of broken shell just under a few inches of sand. The CTX doesn't seem to like this at all. My suggest is Minelab needs to take a CTX and some test equipment back into the field and tweak their tuning for beach hunting, just my 2 cents worth.
Given the right beach conditions though the CTX is one deep mother. I was up in the dry sand this evening looking for a ladies lost wedding band and dug another mega deep clad dime.
saltwater jim
New member
ive found by lowering the gain not the sens with fast on seems to make the heater run good. been running at 26 sens 20 gain, not sure if lowering gain will make me miss those small gold items jim
Charles (Upstate NY)
Well-known member
saltwater jim said:ive found by lowering the gain not the sens with fast on seems to make the heater run good. been running at 26 sens 20 gain, not sure if lowering gain will make me miss those small gold items jim
Will give this a try Jim I'm just heading out now, west winds have knocked the waves down so I'm heading into the water.
GraveDiggerMax-VaBch-Va
New member
today it was slow so i did lots of testing with the gain - attached is a picture - several small items that fell into the 12 02 up to like 12 06.[attachment 236561 06261202.jpg]
with gain at 15 or 16 AND THAT IS WHERE I GET THE BEST RESULTS IN THE CRASHING WAVES AND SURF.......all of the targets pictured were all faint to really low repeatable targets and swing kinda fast, one might have missed them - (no great loss if one did) - anyway - if i bumped up the gain like jim said to 20 or above - BANG BANG even the tiny babies sound good, BUT I REALLY SUFFER WITH IT IN THE WAVES AND CRASH WITH GAIN ABOVE 16.
TODAY WILL BE DAY NO 4 FOR THIS PROGRAM IN THE WASH/WAVE/CRASH ZONE
YOU GUYS WHO HUNT IN THE WATER - PLEASE GIVE IT A TRY AND LETS SEE IF WE CAN IMPROVE MORE ON THSI SET UP
THANKS
.
.
FAST ON
SENSITIVITY 21 TO 25 IN THE WAVES EVEN
PITCH HOLE
with gain at 15 or 16 AND THAT IS WHERE I GET THE BEST RESULTS IN THE CRASHING WAVES AND SURF.......all of the targets pictured were all faint to really low repeatable targets and swing kinda fast, one might have missed them - (no great loss if one did) - anyway - if i bumped up the gain like jim said to 20 or above - BANG BANG even the tiny babies sound good, BUT I REALLY SUFFER WITH IT IN THE WAVES AND CRASH WITH GAIN ABOVE 16.
TODAY WILL BE DAY NO 4 FOR THIS PROGRAM IN THE WASH/WAVE/CRASH ZONE
YOU GUYS WHO HUNT IN THE WATER - PLEASE GIVE IT A TRY AND LETS SEE IF WE CAN IMPROVE MORE ON THSI SET UP
THANKS
.
.
FAST ON
SENSITIVITY 21 TO 25 IN THE WAVES EVEN
PITCH HOLE
Well I tried some things tonight and here is where I ended up.
Most of the falsing once the the waves make it half way up the shaft are occurring in the very low co numbers. So I moved to 4 tone and set the lowest bin to 100hz. Then I set my 2 disc patterns as pictured below. If I could tolerate the falsing I ran pattern 2, when it got too annoying I would move to pattern 1. As you emerge to the shallow water the falsing subsides substantially. I do not like losing those lower co numbers on the beach but the falsing could get out of control at times. That coming from a person who liked ttf on the etrac isn't good
I alternated between ground coin and high trash. I had fast on deep off, gain 24 and was able to keep my sensitivity up at 24.
I did not get to try your settings yet Max, I will give them a go next time out which may be tomorrow night, I hope.
Most of the falsing once the the waves make it half way up the shaft are occurring in the very low co numbers. So I moved to 4 tone and set the lowest bin to 100hz. Then I set my 2 disc patterns as pictured below. If I could tolerate the falsing I ran pattern 2, when it got too annoying I would move to pattern 1. As you emerge to the shallow water the falsing subsides substantially. I do not like losing those lower co numbers on the beach but the falsing could get out of control at times. That coming from a person who liked ttf on the etrac isn't good
I alternated between ground coin and high trash. I had fast on deep off, gain 24 and was able to keep my sensitivity up at 24.
I did not get to try your settings yet Max, I will give them a go next time out which may be tomorrow night, I hope.
Only ever tried GB once just to see, actually other than that I have not used it at all, I keep forgetting its there I am so used to the Etrac LOL Auto I do not really ever like to run. I will say that when things have gotten really bad and on manual sensitivity and I have been down to 16 to get the machine to quiet down I have gone to auto. I have had times in auto where the machine has been some what calmer and other times when it has been horrible even on -3. It usually is down around 14 when in the surf!!!!
The bottom line is that as the ctx when submerging just around the coil in the surf is ok, even better than the etrac imho. but the farther the machine goes into the water the worse it gets. Once the waves make it half way up the shaft it gets very annoying, when the water gets to the screen housing it become unbearable and unhuntable. In fresh water I have been able to run the machine wide open.
Is anyone seeing this with their machines or do I possibly have some other issue???
The bottom line is that as the ctx when submerging just around the coil in the surf is ok, even better than the etrac imho. but the farther the machine goes into the water the worse it gets. Once the waves make it half way up the shaft it gets very annoying, when the water gets to the screen housing it become unbearable and unhuntable. In fresh water I have been able to run the machine wide open.
Is anyone seeing this with their machines or do I possibly have some other issue???