I have uploaded a series of step-by-step training, or learning search modes, for the CTX 3030. Each step opens a new area of the search pattern to be learned. They are designed mainly for the new metal detectorist, but can be used by any detectorist new to the CTX.
I think that the Combined Tone profile lends itself well to this training series, but you may want to experiment a little where you put the tone divisions.
‘CTX Training 1’ is an intentionally closed search pattern. Yet it finds a great deal of items, as listed below. Its purpose is to allow the detectorist to ‘learn’ how to identify good items, and how the CTX 3030 represents them, without being confused and overwhelmed by the trash signals. This makes a good introduction to the CTX 3030. Of the four training steps in this program, CTX Training 1 is by far the easiest in which to learn how to distinguish between the good find and the trash.
Some of what Training 1 will find:
Morgan dollar, Peace dollar, Eisenhower clad dollar, Susan B. Anthony dollar, Seated half dollar, Barber half dollar, Walking Liberty half dollar, Franklin half dollar, Kennedy clad half dollar, Seated quarter, Barber quarter, Standing Liberty quarter, Washington silver quarter, Seated dime, Barber dime, Mercury dime, Roosevelt silver dime, 1894 Canadian dime, Half dime, Various large cents, 1866-1909 Indian Head cent, Wheat cents, 1787 Mass. Half cent, 1885 Canadian silver 3 cent, 2 cent bronze piece, ½ oz. Gold Bullion coin, 1oz. Gold Bullion coin, 1oz. Pure Silver coin. Jewelry.
I’m sure it will find other things also.
One common item that Training 1 doesn’t find is nickels. There are way too many trash signals around the nickel signals for the purposes of this introductory learning step.
CTX Training 2 opens a new area of the screen to learn.
Things that can be found in the new area are:
1859, 1862, 1865 Indian Head cents, Flying Eagle cent, 1852 Silver 3 cent piece, 1906 $5.00 Gold Half Eagle. Jewelry
There will also be a good bit more trash signals. You will now have to expand your knowledge on how to distinguish between the good and the bad signal. This won’t be as easy as in Training 1. Often it won’t be possible. You just have to dig it. But, if you now concentrate more on the audio signals, the visual signals on the screen, and the TID numbers, you might find little clues to help with making the determination between the good and the bad. Also, people make posts on Find’s Treasure forum with little tricks that they have found.
Training 2 still doesn’t find nickels.
Training 2 mainly finds items that are fairly rare, yet it adds a good bit of trash. Meaning, with Training 2, you won’t find many new good items compared to the amount of trash items. For this reason I have put together an alternate second-step in the training series, CTX Training 2a, which finds nickels. In my opinion, Training 2 is the better second-step instead of 2a because of the difficulty of trash around the nickels. Future feedback (if there is any) may say otherwise. And, CTX Training 3 gets to the nickels anyway.
The alternate second-step training pattern, CTX Training 2a, jumps right to the more common ‘nasty nickels.’ I say nasty because of all the trash signals around the nickel signals. Lots of pull tabs and other aluminum trash. It can be very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the good and the bad items. As they say, “You’ll never know until you dig it.” That doesn’t mean you can’t find nickels. You can. You’ll just have to dig a lot of pull-tabs also.
Items that can be found in Training 2a:
Shield nickel, V-Nickel, Buffalo nickel, 40% Silver Jefferson nickel. Jewelry
The advantage of using 2a as the second step is that you can move to the more commonly found nickels. The disadvantage is trash, trash, trash.
CTX Training 3 is a more open search pattern with a new area to search and learn. The new area depends on whether you used Training 2 or 2a as your second step. In either case, your new area will be easy to see. Again, concentrate on the audio, visual, and TID numbers to help you find little clues to distinguish between the good and the bad. As usual, that’s not always possible. That’s why you have a shovel.
If you used Training 2 as your second step, the items listed under 2a will be the new items to find here. If you used 2a as the second step, the items listed under 2 will be the new items to find.
CTX Training 4 is the last planned learning step of this series. It is the most open search pattern of the series, yet not as open as other patterns you might see. It basically opens up the areas to the left and right of the nickel area. To the left of the nickel area you might find the Nickel 3 cent piece, and better detection of the Type 2 Gold $1.00 coin. You can also find jewelry on either side of the nickel area. Jewelry can be found in all four steps of this training program mainly around the FE 12 line, all across the screen, left to right.
When you finish with training 4, you are well prepared to move on to any search pattern you might like.
I have also included with this upload a search mode called CTX Nickel Training. Its purpose is to be able to concentrate on just the nickels, and unfortunately the trash around them, without being bothered by anything else. This may help in learning nickel detection.
In all of these search modes, the second Discrimination Pattern is wide open in case you want to check something out.
I think CTX Training 1 might have other uses besides this training program. It might be used as a search mode to ‘quickly zero-in’ on the majority of items you might come across without being bothered by a lot of trash. Perhaps it might also be used in very high trash situations by elimination a majority of the trash and finding the good stuff more easily.
While CTX Training 4 is still a bit of a closed search program, you may find it to be a favored ‘find just about everything’ program that you might want to continue to use on occasion.
CTX Nickel Training can also have another use. Because nickels are common but somewhat troublesome, and we may often tend to pass over them, after you’ve searched an area once or twice, you may want to go over it again with just the nickel program in order to concentrate on them.
(* Update:
I have now included one more search mode with the learning modes. It is called ‘Beyond Training hh.’ It is a ‘full fledged’ search mode. Not a training mode. It is a modification to CTX Training 4 and a complement to the training modes. If you have used CTX Training 4 and are familiar with it, you might want to use Beyond Training as an all purpose search mode. It will find more stuff than CTX Training 4, but a little more trash also.)
When you download these search programs, if you click on the edit icon, you will see that I have written in the notes area for each step of the training series. Please read the notes. There’s some useful information there. Some of what I put in those notes is here also, but you won’t always have this post to refer to, while you will be able to refer to the notes.
All the names of the actual files for these search programs are appended with my initials hh.
While it is my hope that these step-by-step search modes prove to be helpful in learning to identify good finds, don’t forget to read the manual. I suggest you read through the manual twice, closely. Get to know the various setting and what they do as well as you can. Keep the manual handy for at least two months while you are using the CTX, to refer to and to look-up things that you don’t remember. For questions that you have, search the posts on Find’s Treasure forum, or make a new post with your question. I can’t believe the knowledge that some of these people have, and the detail they go through for testing various settings and conditions. Make the manual your best friend for a while.
DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS:
I am very wordy with my instructions. So, unless you are already familiar with how to download and import search modes for the CTX, you may want to copy and paste these instructions to a word program or such, and print them out.
First, if you haven’t done this already, start the Xchange 2 program. Then plug your CTX 3030 into your computer with a USB cable. This will make the All, File, and Recycle icons appear on the left side of the Xchange 2 window. They will now stay there even when the CTX is unplugged. The CTX 3030 icon will only appear while the CTX is plugged in.
When you download a file to your computer, you need to know what folder it goes to, and remember the name of the file you downloaded. In this case, CTX Training.mlf. If you download this file and don’t know where it went to, you can do a search of your computer for the file name. If you need help, I’m sure you can get it from someone on this forum. It’s really pretty easy. Don’t worry about it. If you want a file from this forum, people on this forum want you to have it, and will help you to get it.
CTX Training.mlf is one file, but within it are 7 individual search modes, each with its own name. When we ‘import’ them into Xchange 2, all 7 search modes will appear. Don’t bother trying to ‘open’ the mlf file or do anything with it. You can’t. Only the Xchange 2 program can work with a mlf file.
Okay, let’s get started.
At the bottom of my post you will see a block that says Attachments. Note the name of the file – CTX Training.mlf. Click on download. A small window will come up. Click on ‘Save File’ if necessary. Click OK. The file will now download to your computer in a couple of seconds unless you have a very slow connection. Find the file on your computer to make sure you know where it is.
Start your Xchange 2 program if you haven’t already. We will create a new Collection for these 6 search modes to go into. Near the top left of the Xchange window you will see the word Collections with a ‘+’ sign next to it. Click on the + sign. In the window, give this collection a name. I suggest ‘Training.’ Chose an icon and a color. Click ‘Save New.’
Now, on the left side of the screen, near the top, click on the ‘File’ icon. We need the File collection to be empty. If there is anything in there, make sure you don’t need it. If you do need something, drag and drop it into a different collection. It will ‘copy,’ meaning it will now be in File and whatever collection you dropped it into. Click on that collection to make sure it is there. Do this with any item in the File collection that you need to keep. When you are sure that whatever is in the File collection can now be deleted, let’s do that. Highlight everything in the File collection either by clicking on ‘All,’ or by clicking on each item so it turns blue. Near the top, you will see a small gray icon with an ‘x’ on it just to the left of the word Map. If you hold your cursor over it, it will say, ‘Clear the contents of the File collection.’ Click on that icon and everything should be deleted out of the File collection.
Now we are ready to import the CTX Training.mlf file. With an empty File collection, now next to the word Map, is a small gray icon with an up arrow on it. Click on that. In the little window click on ‘Choose File.’ You now have to navigate to, or find, the CTX Training.mlf file on your computer. When you do, highlight it by clicking on it once. Click on ‘Open.’ All 7 individual search modes will now appear in the File collection. We will move these to your newly created collection.
If necessary, use the scroll bar near the left of the screen, next to the collection icons, so that you can see the newly created icon. But don’t click on it. If you do click on it, click back on the File icon again. When you can see that new icon, you need to highlight all 7 files in the File collection. You can do that by clicking on All, or by clicking on each individual file. When they are all highlighted blue, click on any one of them and hold the mouse button down. Now drag the cursor over the new collection icon and release the mouse button. Click on your newly created icon to make sure ‘all 7’ search modes were copied to the collection. If they are all there, you can delete the ones in File.
All finished. Now read the XChange manual on how to move the training modes to the CTX.
Harry
I think that the Combined Tone profile lends itself well to this training series, but you may want to experiment a little where you put the tone divisions.
‘CTX Training 1’ is an intentionally closed search pattern. Yet it finds a great deal of items, as listed below. Its purpose is to allow the detectorist to ‘learn’ how to identify good items, and how the CTX 3030 represents them, without being confused and overwhelmed by the trash signals. This makes a good introduction to the CTX 3030. Of the four training steps in this program, CTX Training 1 is by far the easiest in which to learn how to distinguish between the good find and the trash.
Some of what Training 1 will find:
Morgan dollar, Peace dollar, Eisenhower clad dollar, Susan B. Anthony dollar, Seated half dollar, Barber half dollar, Walking Liberty half dollar, Franklin half dollar, Kennedy clad half dollar, Seated quarter, Barber quarter, Standing Liberty quarter, Washington silver quarter, Seated dime, Barber dime, Mercury dime, Roosevelt silver dime, 1894 Canadian dime, Half dime, Various large cents, 1866-1909 Indian Head cent, Wheat cents, 1787 Mass. Half cent, 1885 Canadian silver 3 cent, 2 cent bronze piece, ½ oz. Gold Bullion coin, 1oz. Gold Bullion coin, 1oz. Pure Silver coin. Jewelry.
I’m sure it will find other things also.
One common item that Training 1 doesn’t find is nickels. There are way too many trash signals around the nickel signals for the purposes of this introductory learning step.
CTX Training 2 opens a new area of the screen to learn.
Things that can be found in the new area are:
1859, 1862, 1865 Indian Head cents, Flying Eagle cent, 1852 Silver 3 cent piece, 1906 $5.00 Gold Half Eagle. Jewelry
There will also be a good bit more trash signals. You will now have to expand your knowledge on how to distinguish between the good and the bad signal. This won’t be as easy as in Training 1. Often it won’t be possible. You just have to dig it. But, if you now concentrate more on the audio signals, the visual signals on the screen, and the TID numbers, you might find little clues to help with making the determination between the good and the bad. Also, people make posts on Find’s Treasure forum with little tricks that they have found.
Training 2 still doesn’t find nickels.
Training 2 mainly finds items that are fairly rare, yet it adds a good bit of trash. Meaning, with Training 2, you won’t find many new good items compared to the amount of trash items. For this reason I have put together an alternate second-step in the training series, CTX Training 2a, which finds nickels. In my opinion, Training 2 is the better second-step instead of 2a because of the difficulty of trash around the nickels. Future feedback (if there is any) may say otherwise. And, CTX Training 3 gets to the nickels anyway.
The alternate second-step training pattern, CTX Training 2a, jumps right to the more common ‘nasty nickels.’ I say nasty because of all the trash signals around the nickel signals. Lots of pull tabs and other aluminum trash. It can be very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the good and the bad items. As they say, “You’ll never know until you dig it.” That doesn’t mean you can’t find nickels. You can. You’ll just have to dig a lot of pull-tabs also.
Items that can be found in Training 2a:
Shield nickel, V-Nickel, Buffalo nickel, 40% Silver Jefferson nickel. Jewelry
The advantage of using 2a as the second step is that you can move to the more commonly found nickels. The disadvantage is trash, trash, trash.
CTX Training 3 is a more open search pattern with a new area to search and learn. The new area depends on whether you used Training 2 or 2a as your second step. In either case, your new area will be easy to see. Again, concentrate on the audio, visual, and TID numbers to help you find little clues to distinguish between the good and the bad. As usual, that’s not always possible. That’s why you have a shovel.
If you used Training 2 as your second step, the items listed under 2a will be the new items to find here. If you used 2a as the second step, the items listed under 2 will be the new items to find.
CTX Training 4 is the last planned learning step of this series. It is the most open search pattern of the series, yet not as open as other patterns you might see. It basically opens up the areas to the left and right of the nickel area. To the left of the nickel area you might find the Nickel 3 cent piece, and better detection of the Type 2 Gold $1.00 coin. You can also find jewelry on either side of the nickel area. Jewelry can be found in all four steps of this training program mainly around the FE 12 line, all across the screen, left to right.
When you finish with training 4, you are well prepared to move on to any search pattern you might like.
I have also included with this upload a search mode called CTX Nickel Training. Its purpose is to be able to concentrate on just the nickels, and unfortunately the trash around them, without being bothered by anything else. This may help in learning nickel detection.
In all of these search modes, the second Discrimination Pattern is wide open in case you want to check something out.
I think CTX Training 1 might have other uses besides this training program. It might be used as a search mode to ‘quickly zero-in’ on the majority of items you might come across without being bothered by a lot of trash. Perhaps it might also be used in very high trash situations by elimination a majority of the trash and finding the good stuff more easily.
While CTX Training 4 is still a bit of a closed search program, you may find it to be a favored ‘find just about everything’ program that you might want to continue to use on occasion.
CTX Nickel Training can also have another use. Because nickels are common but somewhat troublesome, and we may often tend to pass over them, after you’ve searched an area once or twice, you may want to go over it again with just the nickel program in order to concentrate on them.
(* Update:
I have now included one more search mode with the learning modes. It is called ‘Beyond Training hh.’ It is a ‘full fledged’ search mode. Not a training mode. It is a modification to CTX Training 4 and a complement to the training modes. If you have used CTX Training 4 and are familiar with it, you might want to use Beyond Training as an all purpose search mode. It will find more stuff than CTX Training 4, but a little more trash also.)
When you download these search programs, if you click on the edit icon, you will see that I have written in the notes area for each step of the training series. Please read the notes. There’s some useful information there. Some of what I put in those notes is here also, but you won’t always have this post to refer to, while you will be able to refer to the notes.
All the names of the actual files for these search programs are appended with my initials hh.
While it is my hope that these step-by-step search modes prove to be helpful in learning to identify good finds, don’t forget to read the manual. I suggest you read through the manual twice, closely. Get to know the various setting and what they do as well as you can. Keep the manual handy for at least two months while you are using the CTX, to refer to and to look-up things that you don’t remember. For questions that you have, search the posts on Find’s Treasure forum, or make a new post with your question. I can’t believe the knowledge that some of these people have, and the detail they go through for testing various settings and conditions. Make the manual your best friend for a while.
DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS:
I am very wordy with my instructions. So, unless you are already familiar with how to download and import search modes for the CTX, you may want to copy and paste these instructions to a word program or such, and print them out.
First, if you haven’t done this already, start the Xchange 2 program. Then plug your CTX 3030 into your computer with a USB cable. This will make the All, File, and Recycle icons appear on the left side of the Xchange 2 window. They will now stay there even when the CTX is unplugged. The CTX 3030 icon will only appear while the CTX is plugged in.
When you download a file to your computer, you need to know what folder it goes to, and remember the name of the file you downloaded. In this case, CTX Training.mlf. If you download this file and don’t know where it went to, you can do a search of your computer for the file name. If you need help, I’m sure you can get it from someone on this forum. It’s really pretty easy. Don’t worry about it. If you want a file from this forum, people on this forum want you to have it, and will help you to get it.
CTX Training.mlf is one file, but within it are 7 individual search modes, each with its own name. When we ‘import’ them into Xchange 2, all 7 search modes will appear. Don’t bother trying to ‘open’ the mlf file or do anything with it. You can’t. Only the Xchange 2 program can work with a mlf file.
Okay, let’s get started.
At the bottom of my post you will see a block that says Attachments. Note the name of the file – CTX Training.mlf. Click on download. A small window will come up. Click on ‘Save File’ if necessary. Click OK. The file will now download to your computer in a couple of seconds unless you have a very slow connection. Find the file on your computer to make sure you know where it is.
Start your Xchange 2 program if you haven’t already. We will create a new Collection for these 6 search modes to go into. Near the top left of the Xchange window you will see the word Collections with a ‘+’ sign next to it. Click on the + sign. In the window, give this collection a name. I suggest ‘Training.’ Chose an icon and a color. Click ‘Save New.’
Now, on the left side of the screen, near the top, click on the ‘File’ icon. We need the File collection to be empty. If there is anything in there, make sure you don’t need it. If you do need something, drag and drop it into a different collection. It will ‘copy,’ meaning it will now be in File and whatever collection you dropped it into. Click on that collection to make sure it is there. Do this with any item in the File collection that you need to keep. When you are sure that whatever is in the File collection can now be deleted, let’s do that. Highlight everything in the File collection either by clicking on ‘All,’ or by clicking on each item so it turns blue. Near the top, you will see a small gray icon with an ‘x’ on it just to the left of the word Map. If you hold your cursor over it, it will say, ‘Clear the contents of the File collection.’ Click on that icon and everything should be deleted out of the File collection.
Now we are ready to import the CTX Training.mlf file. With an empty File collection, now next to the word Map, is a small gray icon with an up arrow on it. Click on that. In the little window click on ‘Choose File.’ You now have to navigate to, or find, the CTX Training.mlf file on your computer. When you do, highlight it by clicking on it once. Click on ‘Open.’ All 7 individual search modes will now appear in the File collection. We will move these to your newly created collection.
If necessary, use the scroll bar near the left of the screen, next to the collection icons, so that you can see the newly created icon. But don’t click on it. If you do click on it, click back on the File icon again. When you can see that new icon, you need to highlight all 7 files in the File collection. You can do that by clicking on All, or by clicking on each individual file. When they are all highlighted blue, click on any one of them and hold the mouse button down. Now drag the cursor over the new collection icon and release the mouse button. Click on your newly created icon to make sure ‘all 7’ search modes were copied to the collection. If they are all there, you can delete the ones in File.
All finished. Now read the XChange manual on how to move the training modes to the CTX.
Harry
So, Thanks Harry and thanks Evan for sharing your programs.