Some jewelry at the beach this morning...

I am sanded in so there is not much on the low tide sand. Everything I find is very deep. Today I found a ring and necklace. Both junk although the clasp on the necklace could be sterling I just haven't tested it yet. The ring is unmarked and I am pretty sure its just steel/tungsten. BUT...I was happy to find each of these. This is the first ring I've found with my CTX (wait or did I find another? I've lost count) and this is the first chain I have found this year. I was very surprised how easily the ctx with 17'' coil was able to detect it.

One thing I also discovered on my CTX is that I much prefer the long pitch vs the pitch hold I was using.

Who says FBS doesn't air test well?

I ran some air tests in my yard today with my CTX. Here are the results:

Settings:

Coil: 17 inch
Sensitivity: 26
Pattern: All metal but last line
Tone: Combined
Deep on
Seawater on
Pitch long
Speaker - no headphones. 

Findings:

Mens 10k Gold band: 16 inches

Mens 14k thin white gold band: 14 inches

Womens 14k White gold wedding band: 8-9 inches

Tungsten Junk Ring Mens Wedding Band: 17 inches

Wheat Penny: 15 inches

1oz silver bullet: 11 inches

Silver nickel: 13 inches

Regular nickel: 13 inches

Quarter: 16 inches

Silver ring: 14 inches

Picture of items. All of these are finds of mine except the silver 1oz bullet:

Should you ignore pennies?

Normally, I say no. You should dig anything that could be gold. And normally I dig all pennies, even on my CTX when its saying 12.37...which is most likely a penny because there is gold that will ring up the same as a penny. Having said that, there are times when I might choose to ignore them.

For example, this morning I was in the wetsand, which is mostly sanded in around me so its only recent drops. I found one spot where I was getting hit after hit. After digging up about 10 pennies I chose to ignore the rest of the 12.37 numbers at this spot. Its very hot out so I can only dig so many times before I need to leave so I wanted to maximize my time by digging only good signals. Did I miss anything good? More than likely not. I think someone dropped their change in this area. In that spot I also found several dimes and that was it.

So I do recommend always digging pennies but if you run into an area like I was in this morning then I think its ok to ignore them, especially if you have limited time and/or other spots to search.

The photo was taken when I took a 2 minute break to wipe the sweat off of my face because this heat we are getting is unbearable.

Some silver

Found some silver with the CTX this morning - Yay!...and a junk ring - boo!

I'm still digging monster sized holes with this 17'' coil. Literally 12+ inches each time. I never thought I would say this but its too deep to dig that much...especially in this heat.

CTX Week One Observations...

First this machine has tons and tons of options. I have read Andy's book several times and learn many new things each time I go through it. This machine is definitely for an advanced user - not someone new to metal detecting. It would just be too overwhelming. So some of my observations after the first week...

Manual sensitivity is much better than auto. I seem to be able to get 5-7 points higher using manual vs Auto.

The machine is very deep with the 17'' coil. I have been going to popular beaches where there is tons of competition...places I rarely get hits with my Excal/CZ21...and I cannot walk more than a few feet without getting hits. And these hits are deep. I swear every target I dug this morning was 12''+. Nothing shallow or on the surface because everyone else got them. I was at the point where I was just hoping I didn't have to dig deeper. I have been to around 4-5 beaches since I got this machine and I literally cant take more than a few steps without getting a deep target. Its crazy.

I need a lot more hours on this. I am still playing with many of the options and figuring out what works best for my beaches. I have found I like pitch hold for my threshold and have to run the seawater option on the wetsand at all of the beaches. And I am still playing with many other options.

I am still playing around with all of the patterns but here is the one I am currently using, which basically is a iron vs no iron. I need to make a few more for the trashy spots.

Coverage

I took a picture of the 11'' coil and 17'' coil for the CTX side by side. You can see huge difference in size between these. The CZ21 coil is 10.5'' and the Excal is 10''...so both are even smaller than the 11'' CTX coil. When you consider how much area you are covering sometimes it is preferable to have more/less. In my case, I usually want more as I usually hunt the dry and wet sand. As a result (*please note these numbers are far from exact as I did NOT measure exact area...they are just fun guestimates), I get about 36% more coverage with the 17'' vs 11'' coil. That is 39% more than the CZ21 and 42% more than the excal. When you start to think about that it starts to add up fast. Then if I want to go in the water I will switch back the 11'' or go to my cz/excal because in the water the smaller coils are easier to swing and control.

New toy...

My new MD toy. I took it out this morning after reading the book and manual all night. I have to say its a very complicated detector. I cant imagine myself feeling comfortable until I have many hours on this. There are many settings and things to consider. My initial thoughts are that this is definitely not a beginners detector.