First day out and thoughts

[minelab marcus]

For what it is worth, here are my thoughts and results from day 1.
When assembling the machine there is a bag with adapters for the battery charger that will fit into any wall plug anywhere. I was impressed with this. That I can take my machine to Europe and bring the charger, switch the outlet plug to match and I am good is a great idea from Minelab and shows they were thinking. It is a small piece with the outlet prongs that slides off and can be swapped out with whatever one you need, wherever you go in the world. A small thing, but great thinking on ML.
One thing that I am not real impressed with is the 'wireless' headphones. They seem to be an add-on or after-thought. If the machine control head can send out the signal to the module, why not just make headphones with a buillt in receiver so you don't have to carry the module?
I am sure in a few months the truly wireless headphones will be an option from Minelab.
Another thing, and this is minor, is the pinpoint button. I am not yet sold on it. Again, it is my first outing, but holding the button for pinpoint will take me some time to get used to. My finger slipped off the button a number of times today. On the other hand, it is easier to go from detect to pinpoint and back again with the button underneath rather than punching a button on the control panel, so there are positives and I am sure I will get used to this shortly.
Lastly, my inline probe will be sorely missed. I really love the inline probe. Perhaps ML's new pinpointer will synch with the wireless or be allowed to be inline some how.
Now the good: I have been running an Explorer 2 for the last 5+ years and I am very comfortable with the signals and smart screen cursor locations, performance, etc. This CTX3030 is definitely deeper than the Exp2.
I have a park here near a train station that has been in use for almost 200 years. I have found a number of old coins at this park including a 1796 North American Trade Token. I have hit this park countless times, every inch, going very slow and each time digging more iffy signals than the time before. The last time I was there, before today, I came out with 5 coins, 1 silver dime and 4 pennies, 3 of them wheats after about 6 hours of detecting.
Everyone in town has detected this park too, who knows how many times.
Today I hit this park for the test of the CTX. I honestly wasn't expecting much knowing how much I have hit this park. Actually, the last time I hit this park I said to myself that I wouldn't be back. After 5 1/2 hours today I came out with a modest 25+/- pennies and a modern dime. Two wheat cents, one at 10". Two other pennies were found literally under a rusty hunk of metal about 1 1/2" diameter at about 5" deep. The machine picked up the pennies perfectly.
I didn't have a camera, but wish I did at that point. My wife thinks the machine should come with one built in. I agree. Maybe the next model.
Overall, nothing exciting but definitely a promising result. I did dig a LOT of junk. Running A+1 or +2 sensitivity really is nice. The machine is very stable and works great.
I still haven't read all the manual yet and I know it will take me at least 6-12 months to really realize the potential of this machine, but I am very pleased so far.
Oh, last thing - I have a bum shoulder from over-working it years ago. I have a calcium buildup inside the socket which I could have an operation to remove, but really don't want to do that yet. With my Exp2 I can go about 45mins before my shoulder starts to kill and then it takes another day to get better. Detecting more than 3 hours with the Exp2 is really a chore. A fun chore, but I pay for it.
I detected 5 1/2 hours today with no pain at all. It was 2 hours into the detecting when I realized ' hey, my shoulder doesn't hurt!'. The balance on this thing is great!
I am very well pleased with this machine.
Thanks Minelab, and Thanks to the Forum Guys who talked me into purchasing this.
HH
MM.

 

[jimzilla]

Good writeup...I agree with you regarding the pinpoint button. I find it is difficult to use since the weight of the detector is on your elbow and you need to keep your finger there. I would of rather a trigger like the Whites models or the same style as the Etrac which I did like.

 

[earthmansurfer]

Great writeup Marcus, good to hear the good with the bad.

You hit on something in the trigger that I wondered about - ease of use. But that said, it will be VERY DURABLE compared to more typical longer style trigger. I bet that is why they did it that way.

Pretty amazing finds considering how you and others have hit the park.

And the pennies below iron? Can you tell us more here? I've seen one other report here and technically it should be possible (though I'm open to it happening - something about FBS2 maybe). Details details please - e.g. depth of initial iron is 5", depth below that of pennies and precise location relative to the iron, if you can ;-)

Great comment about the weight, top thing you said for me! (It's the main reason I got rid of my E-Trac, so here's hoping)

Albert

 

[Buried Crap NJ]

I have about 12 hrs hunting time with the CTX and found that the PP switch was hard to hold on. Thought it was me. Its either wrong angle or just about 1/2 in too high? The headphone are another problem, maybe just because I am here in the northeast and we have waves crashing on the beach while hunting. But I can't hear the threshold unless I raise it considerably. This is not a good control to raise as far a hunting goes.Why Minelab continues to use Koss is be-young me. But they can be replaced with others I own. Not a great big deal. The coil cover is really poorly designed. It snaps onto the coil and is about as strong as some packaging material I have had to open. The center spokes don't close on the coil at any time.The fist sweep in the washing water producer's a full amount of sand. (adds weight) Now I am not sure my coil cover isn't bad and I am not convinced that the sand has any affect on unting like it did on the GT and Excalibur. Remembering this has a smart coil and that may make a difference! The carbon Fiber shart I am concerned about while it light and features a easy adjustment I started to close it after i raised it off to fit the car easy. It is starting to show signs of roughness light it will splinter if i continue?The other minor problem is the arm cuff, it has a pressure 1/4 turn knob that never seems to stay tight after a 1/2 hour i feel the cuff has slid. Again just readjust and keep hunting.

 

[JBE_Iowa]

I prefer the whites trigger pinpoint also, but it isn't waterproof...I think they had to make compromises to get everything waterproof. It would be great if the new pinpointer can be heard through the wireless module and if it could discriminate out iron...some holes I dug had three or four nails in it...gets old digging out every piece of junk.

Joe

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Great post!

 

[dewcon4414]

Ive wondered about the effects of salt water on the rod connectors.... they freeze up on about any salt water machine if you dont break them down regulary. It will be interesting how the screen holds up to sun, salt water and sand on it. Didnt i read Ralph at Sun Ray has an inline for it?? It dont take much to have some physical affects on you. I had elbow issues for years with the Whites..... changed to the Exp and i guess the slower swing helped since i no longer have that issue. Good reports guys, thanks for keeping it real.

Dew

 

[Beyonder]

And the pennies below iron? Can you tell us more here?

You are not getting the hots for those nazi coins again are you?

bey

 

[Reeseb]

Hey, marcus. Are you planning to go back to that spot using manual sensitivity? On the E-Trac, manual is a big plus for depth if you run as hot as possible. I'm thinking you might get some more deep silver out of that spot. Good luck and keep us updated!

 

[earthmansurfer]

And the pennies below iron? Can you tell us more here?

You are not getting the hots for those nazi coins again are you?

bey

You made me LOL with that one!

Actually I started a thread on another forum on how this might be possible. Everyone says it is physics(ly) impossible. eheheh, like that word, physicsly?

I wonder how they might be able to do that as it should be impossible. To test it, not with a freshly buried target but something that has been there for years would add the variables of rust and "halo" or the like.
Perhaps they are playing with the coils EMI field or pulsing the signal using a variance of something time domain?

Albert

 

[minelab marcus]

Actually, I ran the machine in Auto sens for the first 30 mins and then switched to manual and set sensitivity to 24. I usually run between 21 and 25 with my Exp2 at this site.
There is a lot of iron in this site too. There used to be a house/houses here long ago before they made it into a park, so I set the recovery to Fast and Target Separation to FE-Coin.
The 24 setting gave me crazy depth and I dug a few holes up to my elbow deep to find old iron plate or whatever. The chatter got bad, so I noise canceled again, ground balanced and it was OK for a while but then got bad again.
After about 1 hour of this, I reset to A+1. This really smoothed out the signals but I believe I lost some depth. I do plan on hitting this park again and again with this machine. I need to become more familiar with it and perhaps spend some time at a less-trashy site.
One other thing, The train station is still in use, and the track is maybe 60-100 yards from the park. With my exp2 every time the train went by it seemed like my performance improved. I definitely did get interference from the train. With this machine, the train (s) went by about 4 times yesterday and I did not notice any fluctuation in performance.
I am thinking there are still silvers to come out of this ground, I just need more time on this machine to be able to identify them.
Thanks and HH
MM

 

[minelab marcus]

I had some trouble with the arm cuff too. I couldn't get it tight enough with my fingers so I used a small pair of pliers to get a better grip and lock it. I haven't had trouble with it moving, but I am not hunting beaches yet.
Your comment about the coil cover is news to me also. I didn't realize that. I do plan on hitting freshwater beaches this summer, so I will see how it goes. I may just leave the cover off, but with rocks and stuff I think that might be a bad idea. Will have to see how it goes.
With the shaft, I noticed at the dealers' shop he had a little trouble collapsing the shaft when demonstrating it. I made sure to wipe down the lower shaft real good before closing it. The tolerance between the lower and upper shaft is tight, which makes it wobble less when swinging, but doesn't allow for dirt and dust when closing.
HH
MM

 

[minelab marcus]

Albert
What happened is this:
I know there is a lot of iron in this site and I was running Iron-coin target separation with A+1 sensitivity at this point. I got a good signal, not perfect but a good solid signal repeatable both ways. I don't remember the ID numbers but it noted 5" depth. After pinpointing, I dug a plug about 6" diameter and about 4" deep. I flipped the plug over - I dig a half or 3/4 circle plug leaving some grass roots attached and flip it like a bad toupee - and there stuck to the bottom center of the plug was the iron piece. I looked in the hole and there sitting right there were the two pennies, I didn't have to dig any more. They were aligned if not directly, very close to directly one on top of the other. It was an extremely telling picture of the target separation capabilities of the machine.
All but one of the pennies I dug were 2" or more deep, most were in the 4-7" range, they weren't laying on top of the ground like they were just lost.
I also hit my back yard last night for 30 mins before dark and found another penny at 11". My yard has been hit with everything from a XS2a, Explorer 2 with stock coil, sniper coil, SEF coil and WOT, excalibur, XT30 and XT505. When I need my detecting fix, just for a few minutes, my back yard is it. And it is only a small city lot, not much room to hide. So finding the penny last night was fun.
I will take a picture of the iron piece and post it at a later time. I need to go to the office and make up for the hooky I played yesterday
HH
MM

 

[earthmansurfer]

Hey Marcus,

Thanks for the detailed reply. Once I get a CTX I will be playing with those settings - switching between high trash and ferrous coin - whenever I get a signal that I think may be a coin. Generally I hunted with high trash on, recover fast off but the sites have lots of iron (I'm in Europe). I'm really hoping that the ferrous coin setting gives me a nice advantage. Also, since my ground is somewhat iron mineralized I'll see if a manual GB helps.

Congrats on your finds and that penny in your yard at 11", considering what you have went over the yard with - WOW!

Good hunting and I look forward to more of your "find-ings"
Albert