CTX 3030 USERS REVIEW

Independent Review of CTX 3030
I’ve noticed a few questions popping up about the New CTX 3030 asking if anybody’s
used it or used it in a particular situation so I’m writing this independent review to help those who are interested in purchasing the CTX 3030 to make an informed decision.
I am a full time prospector but also enjoy looking for treasure and coins.
I am NOT affiliated with Minelab or any detector shop and have no financial interests or any other interests in sales of prospecting equipment or in prospecting shops.
I have owned and used the CTX 3030 since its release (I was the first in NSW to by one).
I have owned and used many other Minelab model and other brands of detectors, so I can compare
from experience the performance in comparison to others.
I don’t care what brand of detector I use all I care about is PERFORMANCE.
I’m after an edge over other operators and over previous technology so I can go back to places where I’ve found things in the past and find things I couldn’t pick up with previous detectors.
I have used the CTX 3030 in the following situations:
-On the beach, Looking for coins and jewelry.
-In parks, looking for old coins and jewelry.
-In Europe, looking for ancient treasure.
-In old camps in the Gold fields, looking for old coins and jewelry.
-In the Gold fields in very trash strewn areas, looking for gold nuggets.
I bought the CTX mainly to go over old diggers camps for old coins and to look for nuggets in extreeme trash.
What do I think of the CTX?
I LOVE IT!
Why do I love it?
Because it out performs any other VLF detector.
And that’s what I’m after a performance and a depth advantage.
Because I’ve found heaps with mine and its payed for its self MANY MANY times over.


my CTX

Things I like about the detector:
-It has Ground balance, so you can now use it in mineralized areas to good effect.
-The new platform is comfortable, light, robust, and looks good.
-The wireless headphone option is great and the audio quality is the same as without it, no lag or
distortion. And not being connected to the detector is much better.
-It has great sensitivity.
-The discriminator is second to none!!!!
-The target trace option helps allot in visual ID of a target and also helps a lot in target separation of
A good target from trash once you get used to it. You can actually see multiple targets on the screen at
once and you can pick out the good target, then pinpoint it with the pinpointer and then dig the
good target only once you get used to the detector.
-All of the target separation options help a lot in particular situations.
-The new exchange2 software is very user friendly and gives you control over the base settings of the detector and allows you to design as many discrimination patterns and audio settings as you want and to name them whatever you like. You can then up load 10 of them to the detector.
-the new audio tone options you can you can setup really help you ID particular targets to pick out the good target from the trash.
-It uses multiple frequencies, so you don’t need all these different frequency coils for different scenarios
As you are using all of the frequencies at once and it saves allot of time as you don’t have to recheck the area with different frequency coils.

Neutral and Things I don’t like about the detector. (N=Neutral B=Bad)
N-GPS who cares?
I have never tried it and probably never will and I don’t care if it didn’t have it as I already have a hand held. And after reading the use policy you have to sign in order register to use it I’ll NEVER USE IT FOR SURE.
B-spare parts from minelab took ages to get 1 month to get a 6in coil and even longer to get a spare rechargeable battery.
B-NO PRINTED MANUAL, it took me hours to print and bind my own manual.
What were they thinking not printing the manual. Who carries a computer around with them in the field?
The manual is ESSENTIAL to carry around with you when learning the detector and at the price of the detector they should supply a printed manual.
In case you can’t tell this really Pee’d me off.
B- No protective covers available for the detector, I had to make my own.
B-No aftermarket coils available for the detector so you are limited to the ML ones.
And it definitely needs a 12x7 and 10x5 for gold and a 15in round for treasure.


my hand made cover

As you can see the good points WAY out weigh the bad ones, and in general I’m VERY happy with the CTX as it performs better than any other VLF detector I have used by a good margin.
It takes a while to get used to the settings to be able to get the most out of the detector, but when you do its well worth it and it definitely pays dividends.

My CTX experience has been a very good one from the start on the day I bought it I read the manual for about 2 hours, then I took it to the beach for its maiden swing, it payed for itself in the rings and coins I found on its first outing, and I hadn’t even learned hardly any of the settings yet!
I used it a few more times on the beach and parks to learn the settings and to get used to the detector, because I was heading over to Europe a few weeks later to visit my wives family, and while I was there I was going to be doing some treasure hunting for ancient coins, jewelry and artifacts.


my first days haul


The CTX's modern coin haul so far (the bucket is a 5l size)


Its ring haul so far

Over the 3 months I was in Europe I spent most of it searching for treasure.
The CTX excelled at the task of treasure hunting I found very old and valuable things in areas that we
Had previously flogged with a Etrak a GPX 4800 a Garret AT pro a Garret Infinium and a Tesoro. The reason for this is the FAR superior discrimination and target separation that the CTX has in compared to the others. The Achilles heel of the other detectors is when you have a junk target that is the same size or bigger they only hear the junk. But the CTX and its advanced signal processing separate the good target from the junk and you can visually see the two targets on the screen with the target trace.
Then you can even use the target trace pinpoint to pinpoint the good target and only dig the good target.


A couple of pieces of tresure

Since I got back I’ve regularly used It in the gold fields at night to search the old diggers camps for old coins and trash strewn areas for nuggets after searching all day with the 5000 away from the trash for gold. And its Excelled at this too I’ve already found a couple of sovereigns and other old silver coins and about 2oz worth of small nuggets in the heavy trash. And the ground balance is a big + in these scenarios. If your going to use it for gold nuggets you need the 6in coil which will pick up the tiny pieces as the 11in coil isn’t sensitive enough on the small nuggets (smaller than 1g) and its quite frustrating searching with the 6in as ground coverage is not good its like painting a wall with an artists brush (frustrating) but still pays well enough to keep me interested. In my opinion it needs about a 11x7in or a 10x5 elliptical coil for this purpose.
And keep in mind its depth capabilities its only goes about 100mm deep on a 0.2g’er when using the 6in. but it goes deeper on the bigger stuff.


the soverigns


the CTX's silver so far (some cleaned some uncleaned)
Well as you can see It gets the aurumpro seal of approval AAARRRHHH!!!

Excellent post aurumpro. You've answer a lot of questions for someone that might be looking at the CTX 3030 to add to their arsenal in an unbiased manner. Maybe even Minelab may take one or two of your points onboard - like printed manual and other coil options.
Thanks for taking the time to post.

At last, a great review mate. Been wondering about this thing since the day I was disappointed it wasn't the 6000, haha. Thanks a heap for that aurumpro, I will get one of these toys in the new year and see if an old dog can learn new tricks.

yes costas, that someone was me.

A bloody good post there Aurumpro, I wonder if we all should be getting one.
Sparrowfart.

Gday Aurumpro,
Good post and an Unbiased opinion mate.
I know a few spots that were old diggers camps where this detector would shine.
Question:
Would it be any good for working in thigh to waist deep Salt water? or is it fully waterproof?

great post and finds there aurumpro,makes me want to trade in the etrac soverins hmmm yet to bag one! once again very impressive.

NO OPERATORS MANUAL
I am encountering that often these days where you have to sign up an account, get a password and a user ID just to get a bloody operators manual
Then you get inundated with sales emails and other properganda as well as have your computor slamed by a trojan or spam or some other virus.
Not everybody has a computor, maybe a couple of million of us in Australia do not have a comp.
No operator manual , NO SALE as far as I am concerned

blisters wrote:great post and finds there aurumpro,makes me want to trade in the etrac soverins hmmm yet to bag one! once again very impressive.

Hi blisters couldn't go wrong trading in the Etrak for the CTX its way better.
And just keep lookin for those soverigns there are plenty of top areas to find em up your way.

Gus wrote:Gday Aurumpro,
Good post and an Unbiased opinion mate.
I know a few spots that were old diggers camps where this detector would shine.
Question:
Would it be any good for working in thigh to waist deep Salt water? or is it fully waterproof?

Its waterproof to 3m so its perfect for wading.

CostasDee wrote:Excellent post aurumpro. You've answer a lot of questions for someone that might be looking at the CTX 3030 to add to their arsenal in an unbiased manner. Maybe even Minelab may take one or two of your points onboard - like printed manual and other coil options.
Thanks for taking the time to post.

no worries mate

Adrian ss wrote:NO OPERATORS MANUAL
I am encountering that often these days where you have to sign up an account, get a password and a user ID just to get a bloody operators manual
Then you get inundated with sales emails and other properganda as well as have your computor slamed by a trojan or spam or some other virus.
Not everybody has a computor, maybe a couple of million of us in Australia do not have a comp.
No operator manual , NO SALE as far as I am concerned

they give you a manual on a cd just not a printed one, saving paper maybee?
What ever the reason it realy pee'd me off having to print my own.
At $2600 it shold come with a printed one too.

The last item I purchased that did not have an operators manual either writen or on cd was a video cam and the abreviated instructions on a single piece of paper approx 3 inches x 5 inches were as about as usefull and comprehensive as the rules and regulations on the back of a Vic Miners Right..........Which are as usefull as t.......on a bull

thanks for the review aurumpro great stuff

one question...whats it like with hotrocks in the goldfields?

cheers fencejumper

G'day aurumpro,

Thanks for taking the trouble of posting your experiences with the 3030..

Great review..

Cheers
Arrraarraatt...

fencejumper wrote:thanks for the review aurumpro great stuff

one question...whats it like with hotrocks in the goldfields?

cheers fencejumper

It dicriminates out the Iron based ones ( magnetite ironstone ect)but it still picks up the basalt ones and the tertiary seabed conglomerate ones as a weak target in the target area but also shows them in the iron area at the same time, and they give a very weak and broken audio response so you can after a while use the mind discriminator to sort them from the good targets that give a good audio response.

thanks
cheers

Great wrap Aurumpro,
Have been seriously thinking about this machine to keep us occupied in the off season.
Know of a few Cobb & Co change overs hidden in bushland adjacent to one of our HWY's that I would love to work over.
Took my 2100 to one of them years ago but gave up due to amount of rubbish.
Regards the manual, have experiened this with purchases, I simply print it out (A5) and slip the pages into a plastic envelope, keeps it dry and cleaner.

Cheers
Peter

Hi aurumpro, and thanks for a un-biased and comprehensive review of the CTX3030. Perhaps Minelab should take a good look at your review ... and take some notes!

This is by far the best review that I have read of ANY detector ... it pretty much gives the LOT!! I am very interested in this one ... it just might be the fourth and (somewhat) final string to my gold-hunting goodie-bits bow!

getascripter wrote:Hi aurumpro, and thanks for a un-biased and comprehensive review of the CTX3030. Perhaps Minelab should take a good look at your review ... and take some notes!

This is by far the best review that I have read of ANY detector ... it pretty much gives the LOT!! I am very interested in this one ... it just might be the fourth and (somewhat) final string to my gold-hunting goodie-bits bow!

No worries Kate

Next time My wife and I are prospecting in SA I'll drop you a line I got a soft spot for crazy old grannies that are armed to the teeth, and a couple of good spots on your side of the boarder if your interested.
As long as you can keep quit about the exact location.

mmmm ... ... mmmm ...

Thanks Aurumpro for a great review. I am kinda interested in in a 3030 but the price scares me!
If you have a smartphone you can download an app that has the manuals of the popular Minelab models.
http://www.minelab.com/consumer/knowledge-base/news?article=63415
This is very handy and pratical as you don't need to worry about carrying physical paperwork around the goldfields.
Cheers
Curley

I know Marko thought very highly of your expertise
regards Phil

Yeah, Thanks Aurumpro for this posting , Very enlightening post on a detector not many of us know much about. Could find a place in my arsenal for one for sure.
Thinking aloud now ! Maybe i could trade my Excalibur 11 as i dont use it very much for one, Couldn't get rid of my old trusty Sovereign GT,
Ah ! The plot thickens
Again Thanks
Cheers
Ashley

brilliant review thanks AP... looking forward to trying one out on a few oldtimer camps and settlements here

thanks Aurumpro for all of that info have received from M/L there printed matter but not the manuel / have you used it in the surf @at what depth Asyou have stated not many after markets accessorys //// Have you usedit in the rivers at all also does it come with scurity numbers on it like the 4500/5000 just in case the chinese decide to make some copies Thanks mate for that info and have a Merry Christmas ///malcolm mclean Exkiwi

Thanks Aurumpro.

When i posted about this machine:
https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t12070-common-members-someone-should-know-something-about-this-machine
(I was counting to get a response from Pro like you.)
Was little bit disappointed that Wickerman did not get no one reply on his original post)

As we see responses from your review there is a lot of interests and BIG THANKS for sharing yours experiences and knowledge about CTX3030.

(did you pick up any gold nugget with it?).

GoldEN

No worries golden
I got about 2oz of the small stuff so far I didn't put a photo of it as I can't remember which ones they were,
as I just chuck em in the nugget container with the others from the 5000.
But it is a pain using the 6in coil as I already said "Its like painting a wall with an artists brush".
It realy needs a eliptical coil for this purpose

malcolm mclean wrote: thanks Aurumpro for all of that info have received from M/L there printed matter but not the manuel / have you used it in the surf @at what depth Asyou have stated not many after markets accessorys //// Have you usedit in the rivers at all also does it come with scurity numbers on it like the 4500/5000 just in case the chinese decide to make some copies Thanks mate for that info and have a Merry Christmas ///malcolm mclean Exkiwi

Haven't tryed it underwater yet but it says its water proof in the manual and advertising materials
but you need to use under water headphones as the standard ones and the moduel aren't water proof.

Quote Aurumpro

“The Achilles heel of the other detectors is when you have a junk target that is the same size or bigger they only hear the junk. But the CTX and its advanced signal processing separate the good target from the junk and you can visually see the two targets on the screen with the target trace.”
“ The target trace option helps allot in visual ID of a target and also helps a lot in target separation of
A good target from trash once you get used to it. You can actually see multiple targets on the screen at
once and you can pick out the good target, then pinpoint it with the pinpointer and then dig the
good target only once you get used to the detector.”

Hi Aurupro, Not sure I understand how this works. How can you tell by looking at the two targets on the screen which is good or not? Is it different colours for each metal or is it the size of each target?

Hi shiraz
A picture says a 1000 words, so here are some screen shots of the target trace in operation:


This image is showing the targets that I used to demonstrate how the target trace works.

They are a Gold half sovreign, a silver shilling and a larger piece of rusty iron that would commonly be found around the same areas as the coins and would usualy mask the good target with other detectors.



Screen shot 1 shows what was displayed on the screen when I swept the sovreign and the iron together at the same time.
1- the numbers at the top of the screen are the Ferrous number followed by the Condutivity number of the
good target and the aproximate depth
2- The round cursor and the area that is yellow/red is the good target being displayed on the screen,
the one it is giving you the FE/CO numbers for.
3- the blue area at the bottom right hand side of the screen with a red square cursor is the rejected iron
target.
4-the white background area is the area I have programed the detectors discrimination to accept targets in
that area.
5-the blue background area is the reject part of the dicrimination settings I have programed into the detector.




This screen shot is the same as above but using the silver shilling along with the same piece of iron junk.