Its a great machine. I'd suggest getting yourself a copy of Andy Sabisch's CTX 3030 handbook. Lots of good info to help speed along the learning process. HH

LOL, my wife bought me that book to read already! I'm only half way through the user manual so far though! Thx for the reply buddy.

StevesProjects. I'm with you mate! Good grief, what have I done! How the heck can you just go out and hunt? I've had mine for 5 weeks and haven't had the guts to take it on a hunt yet. The more I read the more I get confused! Any tips? Regards from Oz. Chris.

Metal Detecting NWGA many thanks for the advice, I'll do just that. Regards Chris.

StevesProjects. I'm finding the same with mine. It's ok if you've grown up with computers etc but I'm heading towards 70 and it takes a little longer to learn this on your own. I pick it up fast when someone shows me, but out of a book it takes me longer. Still, I'll get there. I still have my Garrett AT Pro to fall back to if I get discouraged. All the best.

Hey Ron. Yessir I agree.. If sifting through thick iron, combined mode with an open screen really helps pick out the masked targets. When I'm feeling lazy or just coin shooting cleaner ground I'll run a modified version of the popular Trashy Park program, 50 co with high trash separation. Just depends on the mood and site. Thanks for watching and HH! Dewayne

My go to program settings were the same as Andy Sabisch program General Purpose Mode. Larger open screen , turned up manual sensitivity will give you more solid signals and much greater depth in dry dirt. Yes it gives more chatter but in combined mode adjust the tones and train yourself or miss the targets. Nothing wrong in going back to the coin program for a more relax hunt in the park. I also set the nickel range 13-14 to ping the same as silver and what a difference that made. Nothing like slamming on the brakes on a silver tone.

Yep I always run manual sensitivity for those exact reasons. In combined mode I still run a low tone on nickels that’s very similar to the nickel sound in 50 tones. I like being able to ID the target by tone, and that low nickel sound still stops me in my tracks just like the high silver tone because I spent so much time hearing it on the Etrac before switching to the 3030 a few years ago. In combined I have a low tone on the nickel bin, a medium tone on the IHP range, and then a high tone on everything in the dime range on up. Lately I’ve just been using the CTX for coin shooting cleaner ground and running 50 tones. When hunting thick iron I just switch to the Equinox or Deus. The CTX is a great machine though. It’s still the undisputed king of coin shooting IMHO. Rock solid ID and unmistakable tones on deep silver. HH Dewayne

Never tried the 50 tones and will try it. Any special settings for that? I've been liking the Pitch-Hold, any thoughts on it?

No special settings other than the fact that I prefer to run high trash in 50 tones over ferrous coin. The only difference being that the tones will be on a sliding scale rather than bins. I actually love the flutey Minelab sound in 50 tones. Used to love hearing that deep silver warble from the old Etrac. Like I said, I do prefer high trash separation in 50 tones over Ferrous Coin. As you know, Ferrous Coin will try to push everything non-ferrous toward the 12 line, so high trash lets you make better use of Target Trace to spot targets that may be sitting close together, creating a smear rather than just lumping them together on the 12 line.. I’ve only tried pitch hold once or twice. Seemed kind of strange to me but to be fair I really didn’t put much time into testing it. Tell me more about it? What situations is pitch hold most useful?

Thanks man!

Thanks! Yep, I agree. Thats how I use the "user" button as well. Very handy! HH

Thanks man!

Thanks for watching man! Good luck with the new CTX! I love mine. HH

I'm loving the CTX. Went to a park that's been heavily detected and I pulled a bunch of wheats, a buffalo nickel and a barber dime. I think i'll retrace my path using your combined. Quick questions on your setup... recovery fast or recovery deep on? I noticed you have the top left quarter descrimed (except for nickels). That work best for you?

Sounds like the CTX is performing pretty well for you! When hunting sites with a lot of iron in the ground, I usually run combined, ferrous coin with recovery deep off and recovery fast on. On fairly clean sites, just the opposite. I like to run 50-CO, high trash with recovery deep ON and recovery fast off. I swap patterns pretty regularly depending on the type of targets I'm looking for or how much time I have to spend detecting. If less time, I run more discrimination. The one shown in this video is just Bill's Trashy Park pattern with the bottom opened up. My go-to coin and jewelry pattern is custom. If you'd like to see it, go to metaldetectingforum.com and search for: CTX Programs "Dirty Frog".

My friend do you think you can share your programs thank you in advance if Is possible my mail Is moypinete@gmail.com

Thanks Cellr! I wouldn't say it was completely masked.. If you move really slow and listen closely, you'd probably still hear it in 50 CO. Combined mode just makes the signal jump out at you a little more. Much easier to hear good targets among the iron junk at a normal sweep speed (for me anyway). FE-CO seems to work better in heavy iron for separating non-ferrous targets. HH

J Manuel Villarreal Thanks! I change patterns depending on a couple of things: how much non-ferrous trash is in the ground and how much time I have to hunt. On this particular day, my time was limited so I was just attempting to cherry pick coins from the iron. I was using a modified version of the famous trashy park pattern. Other days when I have more free time to hunt, I use an almost wide open pattern on the CTX (similar to the tadpole pattern), or I'll use my Deus with zero disc. HH!

Gracious!

Hi and thanks! Here in the US all coins are non-ferrous so most of the time I use 50 tones conductive, high trash separation, deep on and fast off. The pattern I use is a modified version of the popular "trashy park" pattern by Bill S. For ferrous and non ferrous you'd probably just have to run a wide open pattern. Thanks for watching!

@@MetalDetectingNWGA thanks for your info dear, trashy park is not too much restricted? for copper coins i need To use open patterns?

@@vemadventures Trashy Park is designed for US coins and works well for those. What country are you detecting in? Depending on the size and composition of the coins in your area, you may need to create a custom pattern more suited for them.

@@MetalDetectingNWGA located in Italy but most new coins are vdi 12.40 etcc but i dont know if discriminate old coins

@@vemadventures Trash Park pattern will get you targets reading 12-12 through 12-13 and 12-30 through 12-48.

Hey Bob. I haven’t noticed any depth loss in combined mode. The CTX can do ok in thick iron but requires a very slow sweep speed. Honestly though, for the scenario you described I’d prefer the Nox with the 6” coil. Thanks for watching and HH!

Metal Detecting NWGA ok, thanks. Yes, even with a 6" , it targets are crazy, I was impressed with how the ctx identified a possible coin and when you pinpoint it stayed in place but iron might move. That was an interesting feature for me. But I'm not sure how well that feature works in a concentration of steel nails. Even with a 6" , I can have 3-5 steel nails under the loop at 1 time nails are at 3-5", coins are 5-9" . I purchased my 800 from a guy that has a ctx, he does a lot of civil war battle fields.

Metal Detecting NWGA PS Thank you for getting back to me.

I hunt some places like that too. Places where any hole you dig is likely to have 6-10 nails in it. What I’ve noticed is with that kind of iron contamination, the CTX’s ID becomes less useful due to the iron around the target scewing the numbers. What I usually do is dig all targets that ring in above a certain ID or tone break. For example, on the 3030 I may dig everything that comes in at 12-12 or higher. I still dig a lot of trash but I also get most good targets that have a blended ID due to iron or trash targets surrounding them.

Metal Detecting NWGA , ok, yes my friend and I are digging most of the targets , that's how I snagged a seated dime and a half dime. I had a couple 27's 30's repeat, one was below a nail and a harmonica reed, the other was nested within 5 old square nails. We joked about just doing a shaker box lol 😂😂. If there weren't so many fine roots , I would consider it.

Hulkmedia57 , settings are as follows: Mode: Combined Separation: Ferrous-Coin Response: Normal Fast: ON Deep: OFF Seawater: OFF You can find the pattern I use here: metaldetectingforum.com/showpost.php?p=2696166&postcount=13 HH

Metal Detecting NWGA Thanks, I'm learning the xchange 2 program right now, so hopefully I'll have better luck tomorrow. It's extremely trashy where I live, I've only dug nails and can tabs for the past 2 days, and there is a lot of history here so I was kinda disappointed until I saw your video.

Hulkmedia57 hang in there. It takes a little time to get the hang of the CTX's language, but once you do those trashy sites will come alive. Good luck!

No way to know it’s a gold or silver coin, but the ID, size and tone can help give you an idea of what *may* be under the coil. Takes some time to learn. No real shortcuts. As for combined, it just makes nonferrous stand out from the iron tones a bit better IMO. Good luck!

@@MetalDetectingNWGA Thank you bro so much now i understand that, one more qucik question for your opinion what is best tone id for depth bcs im just looking for good depth bcs im trying to find buried gold from my grandfather, and can you explain me little bit about that tone id and kHz is that important for depth?

@@nekonesto239 the tone is really just personal preference. I like high pitched tones just because it’s more alerting to my ears. The things that’ll effect depth the most with any VLF metal detector is recovery speed, frequency and of course sensitivity. For small low conductors we’d get the best results with higher frequencies. For higher conductors we use lower frequencies. Using a lower recovery speed will gain more depth while sacrificing some separation. The CTX is geared more toward finding mid to high conductors, and really has no recovery speed adjustment other than Deep ON or OFF and Fast ON or OFF. For maximum depth run deep on and fast off with a slow sweep speed and a manual sensitivity setting as high as the location will allow while remaining stable. Good luck!

@@MetalDetectingNWGA thank you bro i will not change anything about frequency im scared i will do something wrong i will use lower freq.. Everything other i understand and thank you bro you help me so much one more time sorry for boring❤️❤️

@@nekonesto239 no problem my friend. Good luck finding that gold!

Hard to say. Combined definitely made it jump out at me better though.

@@MetalDetectingNWGA thanks, I tried combined yesterday and got a big old cartwheel penny I've missed before, going back to 4FE and trying to see the difference out in the fields today

Hey Jeff. Sold my CTX a while back, but with combined mode and ferrous coin separation selected, you’d wanna run either an open pattern or very little disc on the bottom.

@@MetalDetectingNWGA Ok, now how do J set this up if you can recall please.

@@jeffgrey1566 you’d just choose ferrous coin as the separation mode, and run it in combined mode. As for the pattern, watch this video starting at about 5:50 to see how to create a custom pattern and select combined: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Y9GniLicrpaXf3U.html

@@MetalDetectingNWGA Thanks so much!!

@@jeffgrey1566 you’re welcome. Good luck!

Hi James. In the first section when running 50CO & high trash, I was running the old trashy park pattern just for demo purposes. High trash tends to work well with discrimination. Ferrous-Coin tends to work better (for me) with less discrimination, since it tries to push non-ferrous targets toward the 12 line. Thats why you see the whole bottom half of the pattern opened up in the video. Some good reading on separation mods can be found here: www.minelab.com/treasure-talk/ctx-3030-target-separation-more-than-a-random-choice

Hi Secondamendment. settings are as follows: Mode: Combined Separation: Ferrous-Coin Response: Normal Fast: ON Deep: OFF Seawater: OFF You can find the pattern I use here: metaldetectingforum.com/showpost.php?p=2696166&postcount=13 HH

Metal Detecting NWGA thank you

Is your pattern one of the downloadable ones, titled 50 tone conductive ferrous coin seperation?

Oops, I posted a link to the old version. Here is the newest version: metaldetectingforum.com/showpost.php?p=2755416&postcount=146 You'll see a link to a mlf file at the bottom (may have to be registered and logged in). That should give you everything you need.

If you could help me , 12.40 it supposed to be gold ??If you know what numbers gives for gold