Minelab CTX 3030 for Gold Nuggets

[Jonathan Porter]

Steve, I have the perfect place for you to test, I just did up the road into my property and the road passes right through the gut of a major set of alluvial diggings, tried my 5000 on the graded portions and was absolutely swamped with trash signals, if ever there was a case for a good discriminating VLF this would have to be it.

An old guy I know who was detecting these parts in the early 80's said he got nuggets up to five ounces in and amongst the rubbish so I know there is good gold to be had there, problem is it is VERY HIGHLY mineralised!!

Care for a trip out to OZ and

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 spending time testing out mid-frequency, do it all detectors in the gold fields?

Do you think the Gold Bug II you kindly gave me in conjunction with Iron Grunt be able to handle this ground? Or should I go for the CTX 3030 and try to find a pattern off the net for nugget hunting in trashy ground.

JP

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi JP,

The Gold Bug 2 will handle it easily and would be a very good bet for an exploratory run. Just slap it in Iron Disc mode and off you go. You will get lots of clicks and pops on ferrous stuff - just ignore them and go for clean signals.

The CTX will run much cleaner and is worth trying also. You just want it wide open to accept all targets but set for TTF (two tone ferrous).

I want to give the new Coiltek 5" x 10" coil for the CTX a go but frankly it costs too much and is not likely to do any better than the stock coil. Just a handy shape for poking in nooks and crannies and the solid design will slide smoothly over obstacles.

Here are some magic settings from Keith Southern, a master at hunting in ferrous trash http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,56512,56512

I am starting to wonder that maybe there is a place for machines that are not considered hot on gold per se. Too much transmit voltage can be counterproductive in very mineralized ground. As you know gold can be found with any detector if it is large enough and shallow enough, and there is still large, shallow stuff lurking in the trash. Perhaps more so than anywhere else these days. So what machine to use to wade in there and find them? The CTX could be as good a choice as anything. http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/361-minelab-ctx-3030-for-gold-nuggets/

Packing my bags, be on the plane in an hour....

[Jonathan Porter]

Hey Steve, thanks for the feedback. Just for the record I'm a total newb when it comes to the CTX, out of interest would it be possible to do a setting-by-setting/blow-by-blow description on how you would go about setting up the CTX for just such an endeavour? Once done we could share the settings via the Minelab Xchange2 shareware for other forum members.

I've just received an email from Nenad at Phase technical with just such an attachment for the CTX so am excited by the prospect of sharing others settings experiences etc. (I assume a shareware file with settings would be considered confidential so will touch base with Nenad on this, or perhaps he can reply here)

Will definitely give the GBII a go over the same ground…… I have a bed made up for you, let me know when your flight comes in. :-)

JP

[Steve Herschbach]

OK, what we can do is learn together, because when it comes to nugget detecting with the CTX I am a newbie also. I was going to use Keith's settings as a starting point myself and then tweak for goldfield conditions. I will also reactivate the "Downloads" file sharing part of this forum which could be used to share CTX and other files. Been meaning to do that anyway to upload and share pdf files. It will be for forum members only to conserve my server bandwidth.

I will see the Coiltek folks at the Minelab Conference in February. Maybe I can beat a free coil out of them!

[deathray]

Wheres Ron? He really is the ctx master,think he had one the first week they where out...plus he started the ctx nuggetshooting craze,lol.

[Jonathan Porter]

Went out with the CTX yesterday and had mixed results… no gold but there were a few exciting moments that could have been interesting. I didn't do anything special with the CTX, just selected a high trash mode and went for it, will return with a different pattern once I get time to hook up to the PC.

The large piece of lead really had my heart pumping for a moment as did the piece of brass, its amazing how sweet a non-ferrous target can sound even to an inexperienced ear like mine to coin/relic detecting.

JP

[Steve Herschbach]

Yikes, I thought that was a nugget - would have got my heart pumping also. Already proves the point though; if it had been a nugget, you would have found it.

[fredmason]

While out in the dale Mining area I have played with my 3030 in the all-metal coin mode...it has picked bullets and aluminm and brass out of the iron infested/hot rock infested campsites...

Hopefully, I will glean some great info from the Masters...if you don't get too technical for me.

 

fred

[strick]

Interesting pair of gloves. I'm guessing that they must have some sentimental value!

Great thread and looking forward to seeing the results of the CTX since I have a vested interest in one. It certainly is able to pick up some small targets. Every time I dig up a piece of lead like that I have to take it home and clean it up just to make sure it's not gold. I spoke to a fella who told me that he found his biggest gold nugget in a park that used to be an old rodeo grounds. I guess people drop gold nuggets just like they do other stuff.

strick