CTX 3030 Target ID

[bottlecap]

As some of you know I am pretty set on getting a 3030 for this coming spring. I have been doing a lot of reading about it and it seems like an awesome machine. Do any of you notice it is better at distinguishing a pull tab from a nickel? That is just an example and I realize no detector is a magic gold finding wand or everyone would have one but I was just curious if it has advantages over other detectors in that area. Thanks.

 

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[DeepseekerADS]

I've a target ID chart for the Etrac. The come out pretty darned close whether Etrac or CTS

 

[Pointman]

Nickels will read about 12.13 every time, although V nickels or older nickels will read lower (12.10). This is when it is set up in the ferrous conductive. I still will dig a lot of pull tabs, but usually pull tab readings will bounce around (generally they read around 12.06-.09). Nickels will give a solid reading and sound that is hard to miss. I often will switch between an open screen pattern and a discrimination pattern and see if the reading is a stable reading. If it doesn't go down or bounce around I definitely will dig it.

 

[ChampFerguson/TN]

ime, FBS is outstanding in distinguishing nickels from pulltabs. On my Safari 12 to 14 (almost always 14) is a nickel and if it hits 15 at all it is a pulltab. On my CTX, 12-15 is a pulltab and nickels fall as Pointman said. Call it magic, but FBS is good on this.

 

[mrwilburino]

With the CTX you can go into combined mode and set a very narrow nickel "window" if you want. I've got mine set fairly wide: 12-10 to 12-15, but only dig targets that read 6" and deeper, which eliminates square tabs and newer Jeffersons. Unfortunately, beaver tails will read as a deep nickel but they will sound nice and clear, which is an indication of a smaller, shallower target.

 

[Jason in Enid]

That depends on the pulltab style. Every change to shape, weight, style and damage creates a change in the FE-CO response. If you are on a beach it might be possible to block out a specific tab, but in places like lawns and parks you are going to see every style. Even if you have a narrow window of nickle responses allowed, you will still get tabs come in at those numbers.

 

[cudamark]

As some of you know I am pretty set on getting a 3030 for this coming spring. I have been doing a lot of reading about it and it seems like an awesome machine. Do any of you notice it is better at distinguishing a pull tab from a nickel? That is just an example and I realize no detector is a magic gold finding wand or everyone would have one but I was just curious if it has advantages over other detectors in that area. Thanks.

Nope, no advantages over other detectors, in fact, some people get the idea that they can tell the difference and not dig some of those low tones. Big Mistake! Dig them all......at the beach anyway. Gold rings and other valuable jewelry can come up with numbers and sounds exactly like tab and nickel numbers. Now if you're in an old, trashy area, with tons of tabs, and you only want the nickels, you can narrow down the range, but, dig a few good and bad targets to see what their relative readings are. Each piece of ground can alter the reading depending on mineralization, moisture, depth, Etc.

 

[ChampFerguson/TN]

.....dig a few good and bad targets to see what their relative readings are. Each piece of ground can alter the reading depending on mineralization, moisture, depth, Etc.

very good advice regardless of what machine you use. I always intentionally dig some junk(zincs too!) when starting a hunt to make sure how today's conditions (soil, moisture, emi, etc) are causing my machine to respond.

 

[Mach1Pilot]

You generally can tell the difference between a pull tab and a nickel, but I also believe you should dig all low tones anyway to make sure you aren't missing any gold...

 

[cudamark]

You generally can tell the difference between a pull tab and a nickel, but I also believe you should dig all low tones anyway to make sure you aren't missing any gold...

In a 100+ year old urban park, that can be a Herculean task, but, if you want to find gold in that area, that's what you're going to have to do. Personally, I'd rather look for gold at a swimming beach and discriminate out the "junk" targets at a park. Just not worth the effort involved for the possibility of gold vs. the time involved. If I had no place else to hunt, that would be a different story. Then I would probably grid the whole place.

 

[Jason in Enid]

If I had no place else to hunt, that would be a different story. Then I would probably grid the whole place.

No, we all tell ourselves that, and then after the 100th piece of aluminum or foil scrap, you say "this is stupid, I'm going back to just looking for old coins here". Every park I have been to would look like hell if you tried to dig all the gold targets. Digging clean plugs is one thing, when all those plug start running together it all just goes to hell.

 

[bottlecap]

Thanks for all the responses! I dig literally everything at the beach and in the water, I know with my AT Pro gold was pretty identical in target ID to a lot of junk so you really don't have a choice when going for the gold and I would assume that's the case with all detectors, just didn't know if the CTX maybe had a bit of an edge in that department. It can be frustrating digging the gold tones at the park, after a while you want to give up, the thing that always haunts me though when passing up those tones in a park is the fact that I've found more rings on dry land(parks etc) than in the water. When I get my CTX and the ground thaws out I will dig everything, I thinks that's about the best way to get a feel for a new detector. Someone also commented about the different sizes and materials used in pull tabs and I guess I completely forgot about that, I think I have seen more styles of pull tabs than I care to, thought about making a pull tab collection or something!

 

[Pointman]

Regarding discrimination and not digging all signals, last week I detected a next to a sidewalk that i had detected before and found a gold ring. I was using my Vaquero and I wanted to dig all the signals, because even though this church ground had been detected by everyone in the state for the past 30 years, I always dug the STABLE low VDI targets here because of the lack of stuff left.

In the past I have found Indian head pennies, nickels, CW era bullets and a brass wedding band. I know that I had skipped over the ring in the past thinking it was junk, but I suspect that because I was using a machine with no VDI, and that the Vaquero did not have tone ID was the only reason I didn't miss it this time. I feel it would have been a bouncy signal on my CTX and it may even have just fallen out of my discrimination pattern because it was fairly deep as well. It reminded me how I probably walk right over gold rings and don't even know it. I think on the beach we are MAKING an attempt to find gold while in parks and especially in yards we (or at least I) can become complacent to some level and cherry pick.

 

[cudamark]

No, we all tell ourselves that, and then after the 100th piece of aluminum or foil scrap, you say "this is stupid, I'm going back to just looking for old coins here". Every park I have been to would look like hell if you tried to dig all the gold targets. Digging clean plugs is one thing, when all those plug start running together it all just goes to hell.

I didn't say I would try to do it all in one day! In a park that has produced old coins, I'd start with the high conductors for silver and copper. Then add the nickel sounds, then zinc sounds, then all the other non-ferrous. If it was my only decent detecting site, I'd do this over a long period of time, letting the plugs recover before cutting next to them.

 

[Jason in Enid]

I didn't say I would try to do it all in one day! In a park that has produced old coins, I'd start with the high conductors for silver and copper. Then add the nickel sounds, then zinc sounds, then all the other non-ferrous. If it was my only decent detecting site, I'd do this over a long period of time, letting the plugs recover before cutting next to them.

Yeah, that would be the way to do it. I have a lot of spots I have completed phase 1, but then I go off to another site and start over instead of reworking the first site. LOL

 

[cudamark]

Definitely the way to go if you have a choice! It takes someone hard core like me to dig junk sounds!

 

[frogmaster-riviera]

"If you dig the aluminium, you miss the gold"

 

[RobRieman]

"If you dig the aluminium, you miss the gold"

Uhm.... I think you left DON'T out of that sentence. [emoji4]

 

[cudamark]

And he spelled aluminum wrong.....but how some people pronounce it!

 

[frogmaster-riviera]

And he spelled aluminum wrong.....but how some people pronounce it!

Ooops thanks you guys:

"Don't dig the Aluminum or you you'll miss the gold"

Correct?