My CTX 3030 arrived Monday so I rushed home and took it back to work where I charged the batteries and put her together between meetings and calls.
BTW; Kudos to my dealer, who is a sponsor on a Canadian Forum I'm a member of. He kept me in the loop as to availability and delivery of the CTX, and as a bonus, enclosed a Spiral Bound Printed manual which he himself made up as it is supplied only on the CD from Minelab.
My first impressions putting it together is that it is a well built machine, solid, and though it seemed heavy holding it by its shaft, once you hold it properly, it is indeed a well balance detector.
I zipped home after work and quickly loaded my first mode, fairly open pattern with only the bottom 34&35 FE lines blocked out from 1-25 CO. I ran Combined Audio, Auto Sens +3, Fast on, Deep off, Target Trace (Ground-Coin) and Target Trace Pinpoint, set to Sizing. I hooked my Rats to the Wireless Headphone module and set off to a nearby school grounds for a couple of hours of testing. There are no old coins or silver there.
I have never before used a Minelab Explorer or E-trac and will admit to being a little bit overwhelmed with all the musical tones and display information being thrown at me. I've hunted this particular spot often with my MXT but it is nowhere near cleaned out and produces a lot of clad from the 70's and up. By the end of 2 hours, I had picked up 54 coins, 2 buttons, nailclipper, hotwheels car, 2 junk rings, and other assorted bits. Also by the end, I was beginning to figure out where some targets were ID'ing, like pennies 12-43/44. I dug hardly any bottlecaps though, which was nice as there are 3 baseball diamonds here and littered with bottlecaps which my MXT loves. The only ones I dug were strange signals, 01-25 to 35, and all of them were fairly new and all were crown down in the ground.
Likes:
Well balanced
Easy Menu Navigation
WM-10 Wireless module and being able to use my favorite Rats headphones. (no more pulling the cord)
Very, very easy to pinpoint. Pinpoint sizing helps immensely by giving you a narrow signal on coin sized objects
Lots of information on the screen (once I get to know it better) Target trace helped a couple of times zeroing in on a coin that was next to a probable iron target.
Minimal interference with my ProPointer, mostly just a flutter in the threshold.
Ability to adjust tones to match my hearing.
Dislikes: Nothing major yet, still learning the beast.
Pinpoint button is a little high up on the grip for my liking. A bit awkward to keep it squeezed down.
Learning Curve: Think it'll be a couple dozen hours till I get the hang of it all. I only dug one steelcore Canadian coin and still not certain how to tell them apart from all the other iron signals I was getting. I dug a few of them up, but they were the typical rusty screw, a nut, washer, etc. Also, there was probably double the amount of iron signals as compared to when I use the MXt, but many of them were showing 8-12 inches, so perhaps the CTX is more sensitive to small bits, or there is a lot of iron loaded soil deeper down than I imagined that the MXT didn't see. I easily learned where nickels, pennies, pulltabs, and foil registered so its just a matter of time until I get the hang of the other targets.
All in all, I'm happy and impressed with the CTX.
Sorry for the poor picture, was taken indoors with just a flash.
[attachment 234729 06041220Parkside.jpg]
BTW; Kudos to my dealer, who is a sponsor on a Canadian Forum I'm a member of. He kept me in the loop as to availability and delivery of the CTX, and as a bonus, enclosed a Spiral Bound Printed manual which he himself made up as it is supplied only on the CD from Minelab.
My first impressions putting it together is that it is a well built machine, solid, and though it seemed heavy holding it by its shaft, once you hold it properly, it is indeed a well balance detector.
I zipped home after work and quickly loaded my first mode, fairly open pattern with only the bottom 34&35 FE lines blocked out from 1-25 CO. I ran Combined Audio, Auto Sens +3, Fast on, Deep off, Target Trace (Ground-Coin) and Target Trace Pinpoint, set to Sizing. I hooked my Rats to the Wireless Headphone module and set off to a nearby school grounds for a couple of hours of testing. There are no old coins or silver there.
I have never before used a Minelab Explorer or E-trac and will admit to being a little bit overwhelmed with all the musical tones and display information being thrown at me. I've hunted this particular spot often with my MXT but it is nowhere near cleaned out and produces a lot of clad from the 70's and up. By the end of 2 hours, I had picked up 54 coins, 2 buttons, nailclipper, hotwheels car, 2 junk rings, and other assorted bits. Also by the end, I was beginning to figure out where some targets were ID'ing, like pennies 12-43/44. I dug hardly any bottlecaps though, which was nice as there are 3 baseball diamonds here and littered with bottlecaps which my MXT loves. The only ones I dug were strange signals, 01-25 to 35, and all of them were fairly new and all were crown down in the ground.
Likes:
Well balanced
Easy Menu Navigation
WM-10 Wireless module and being able to use my favorite Rats headphones. (no more pulling the cord)
Very, very easy to pinpoint. Pinpoint sizing helps immensely by giving you a narrow signal on coin sized objects
Lots of information on the screen (once I get to know it better) Target trace helped a couple of times zeroing in on a coin that was next to a probable iron target.
Minimal interference with my ProPointer, mostly just a flutter in the threshold.
Ability to adjust tones to match my hearing.
Dislikes: Nothing major yet, still learning the beast.
Pinpoint button is a little high up on the grip for my liking. A bit awkward to keep it squeezed down.
Learning Curve: Think it'll be a couple dozen hours till I get the hang of it all. I only dug one steelcore Canadian coin and still not certain how to tell them apart from all the other iron signals I was getting. I dug a few of them up, but they were the typical rusty screw, a nut, washer, etc. Also, there was probably double the amount of iron signals as compared to when I use the MXt, but many of them were showing 8-12 inches, so perhaps the CTX is more sensitive to small bits, or there is a lot of iron loaded soil deeper down than I imagined that the MXT didn't see. I easily learned where nickels, pennies, pulltabs, and foil registered so its just a matter of time until I get the hang of the other targets.
All in all, I'm happy and impressed with the CTX.
Sorry for the poor picture, was taken indoors with just a flash.
[attachment 234729 06041220Parkside.jpg]
