My Minelab CTX 3030 came today

[Ken C]

My Minelab CTX 3030 came today along with the 17" coil. It also has the wireless headphone setup. I gotta admit, I'm pretty excited to use it this weekend!

[Digger_O'Dell]

Huge congrats on the new machine! I rrmember how excited i was when i got mine! It's a big investment, but in my opinion worth every penny. If may seem complex or intimidating at first, but you'll get used to it pretty quick. After reading Andy's book and watching every video I could figure it only took maybe a week of hard detecting to feel very comfortable with it. Just be prepared for that 17 inch coil, it's a beast to swing for extended periods of time, but it does go incredibly deep. Have fun, I know you'll do great!

[Ken C]

Huge congrats on the new machine! I rrmember how excited i was when i got mine! It's a big investment, but in my opinion worth every penny. If may seem complex or intimidating at first, but you'll get used to it pretty quick. After reading Andy's book and watching every video I could figure it only took maybe a week of hard detecting to feel very comfortable with it. Just be prepared for that 17 inch coil, it's a beast to swing for extended periods of time, but it does go incredibly deep. Have fun, I know you'll do great!

Thanks! I took a VDI reading of all my test coins and came up with this program for the old farm fields I hit. It's basically focused on coins. From the videos I've watched and the sites I've been to, the Seawater option seems to give people better performance. Anyone else find that to be the case?

[Digger_O'Dell]

I don't know where you got that info from, bug the seawater setting in my experience drops the sensitivity almost in half. A small gold ring wouldn't even read dead against the coil. The only time that setting should be used is in a wet salt beach environment of where mineralization is so bad you have no other option to eliminate falsing.
Your program looks OK and will work, and should be a good starting program. But, in real world detecting targets are not ideal so the VDI can swing pretty far. For example, a typical wheay cent may be 12-38. But put a nickle in the hole with it snd you might see a 12-28. There are often cases where a coin for example may be next to a nail or piece of wire or even another different coin that will significantly change the reading. Eventually you will likely want to open the screen above about 15. This has worked well for me in most situations and is my "go to" program with the 2nd screen either wide open or using the Tadpole pattern which you can easily find online.

[Ken C]

I don't know where you got that info from, bug the seawater setting in my experience drops the sensitivity almost in half. A small gold ring wouldn't even read dead against the coil. The only time that setting should be used is in a wet salt beach environment of where mineralization is so bad you have no other option to eliminate falsing.
Your program looks OK and will work, and should be a good starting program. But, in real world detecting targets are not ideal so the VDI can swing pretty far. For example, a typical wheay cent may be 12-38. But put a nickle in the hole with it snd you might see a 12-28. There are often cases where a coin for example may be next to a nail or piece of wire or even another different coin that will significantly change the reading. Eventually you will likely want to open the screen above about 15. This has worked well for me in most situations and is my "go to" program with the 2nd screen either wide open or using the Tadpole pattern which you can easily find online.

Thanks for the advice! I saw the Seawater option on a Hoover Boys video when they tried the 17" coil. I also read that on a forum post somewhere...looking for that now. I'll adjust to not have the Seawater option enabled and tweak the open a little.

[Donnie B]

Remember to uncheck "Enable GB" when going from one area to the next or the machine will think it is at the last place you hunted. Congrats! It's a great machine! I don't have one anymore but I ran it wide open with very little discrimination.

[Digger_O'Dell]

Don't get confused with playing too much with the settings, at least until you become more familiar. Best bet for sensitivity is to keep it in auto +2 or +3. Drop it if you get too much falsing. In areas with a lot of clutter I've used manual and dropped it low as 3 or 4 to better separate the targets though depth takes a hit.
I would highly suggest getting the Andy Sabisch CTX handbook. It explains everything pretty well in plain English. At times I still find myself referring to it as a reference when I run into some unique detecting scenario.The book is priceless!

[Ken C]

Remember to uncheck "Enable GB" when going from one area to the next or the machine will think it is at the last place you hunted. Congrats! It's a great machine! I don't have one anymore but I ran it wide open with very little discrimination.

Thanks for the heads up!

Don't get confused with playing too much with the settings, at least until you become more familiar. Best bet for sensitivity is to keep it in auto +2 or +3. Drop it if you get too much falsing. In areas with a lot of clutter I've used manual and dropped it low as 3 or 4 to better separate the targets though depth takes a hit.
I would highly suggest getting the Andy Sabisch CTX handbook. It explains everything pretty well in plain English. At times I still find myself referring to it as a reference when I run into some unique detecting scenario.The book is priceless!

Yea, I heard that was a great book so I ordered on Wednesday. With any luck, it will be here today. I also got his book for the Deus at the same time.

Thanks for the suggestions.