Advanced detector functions Minelab CTX 3030 - Volume Gain

The advanced features of Minelabers can be clearly included in the menu item called Volume Gain. This option can be found in the Audio menu of E-Track. Of course, it is also used by the CTX 3030 and is also part of the GPX series pulse detectors. On the CTX, this option is accessed from the Edit menu of the selected program, and on the Gpx detectors, this function is available in the main menu on the display from the back. From English we can loosely translate this function as "gain volume" and what is it, the gain volume, what is this function for?

It's not the setting of your monthly income, as you would freelyunfortunately, if that were the case, this function would be set to maximum all the time for probably all of us, wouldn't it. I set this option constantly in the field depending on what and where I'm looking for and what targets I want to hear, I'll explain what I mean in a moment. Volume Gain works essentially like a signal amplifier. Most detectors let you know about the target under the probe by sound and modulate the sound according to the depth of the target, so to speak, a deep target will be announced with a faint tone, while a shallow target will be loud. The disadvantage of such modulation in the audio response is that if the target is extremely deep, one can say at the edge of the range, the sound is almost imperceptible and thus can be very easily missed.

I'm sure you all know this from experience, when you pass fine shots after a few hours of searching because you are tired of diggingm and you don't pay so much attention to faint rustles, of course after some time your hearing gets tired and it is very easy to miss such deep targets unintentionally. This is essentially what the Minelabs have tried to avoid by incorporating a Volume Gain function into their menu. The volume limit value can be set between 1 and 30 for FBS detectors, 1-15 for pulsers and up to 20 for the GPX 5000.

It can be logically deduced that 1 is the lowest value and no amplification of weak signals will occurThe value set to 30 is the highest value and the detector does not "modulate" the audio response at this value. The audio response is not flat and all targets, even those at the very edge of the range, are signalled by a strong tone, like shallow ones.

So the function is clear to us, basically it is that a high volume gain value will amplify those weak (deep) targets to an audible level. That's a pretty crucial thing to ensure that even the weakest targets that we'd be most likely to miss, we don't miss and rather kick them. Now you might be wondering why I should actually play with this value, why don't they build it to the max in Minelab, after all I need those deep goals, and you see, I'll give you the answer, and you'll recognize that there's a rationale for that range of settings.

Imagine the situation, your girlfriend comes to you, tears like peas, and tells you that she lost her engagement ring on the beach today, but she knows approximately where it will be. It is clear to you that the ring will not be deep, and here again you use the volume gain function, but instead of the desired depths, it instead setsthe volume gain to zero, because deep targets would bother you unnecessarily and you'd be all over the place after a few deep digs.and rusty coins, you'd throw a poop on your wedding ring rescue, whereupon you, as a prospector, would be in the eyes of youryour sweetheart's eyes, you'd drop to the freezing point at that moment and be denied nighttime fun for a reasonably long time, and you certainly don't want that. So you see, even a low volume gain sometimes has its justification.

Sometimes even a very high gain value has its flies, the ubiquitous transmitters, occasional mineralization, the agricultural advances of our time in the form of ammonia, ledge and nitrogen fertilizers, etc. With a very high volume gain value they can also be evaluated as a weak target and amplified, so it is important to have room to adjust the gain value yourself.

In a field near a transmitter where I'm just going for a look I'm certainly not going to crank the gain value to 30, but I want to have a stablecalm machine and slightly boost the deeper targets, so I'll set the gain around 18-20. On the other hand, in the woods where there was some silverfish lying by the road, I'll crank the gain up to 25 or higher because I want to see if there's another deeper one nearby. Volume gain is just one of the many sophisticated features of metal detectors Minelab, but you can see for yourself that it is very useful and allows you to basically tailor the detector to you and the conditions where you are looking.

These features abound with the Minelab and it is important to learn and understand them, then you will not be a prisoner of your detector, but it will do exactly what you want. I once told a friend that the Minelab was totally versatile, not to worry, his claims about the complexity of the Minelab took a hit after a few weeks of learning and now he won't let his E-track out of his hands. I have to say that he was a die-hard analogue player and would not pick up some "pointless" digital. Why I am writing this is because a person who has searched for years with a conventional analogue and understands the advantages of the Minelab and is able to adopt them, turns his views 360 degrees. Even in the beginning, pulling my analog as a second machine and comparing with a dream E-Trac, finding a target in real conditions, not getting lazy, turning on good old analog and comparing.

Many times he was convinced that the analogue didn't pick up colour next to the rusty iron and Minelab gave him a clear absolution. Or conversely the analogue reported a coloured target and the wheelbarrow told him clearly that it was neither iron nor paint, after kicking it out the old cinder block smiled at him. You yourself know the situation when the analogue reports the signal of a larger iron as "iron color", at first you get a couple of such rustyYou kick a few irons and then you often pass them with the statement "I don't kick iron", but sometimes it's really not just a rusty iron, but an obscured coloured target lying next to it. Or you have a target, you dig, you dig, nothing, hole like hell, you swing over the hole and keep getting the target, eventually giving upyou give up because the target is not the target, it's the hole itself, or a root full of sap, and you're actually spared these ills with Minelab. I don't want to say that Minelab is the best detector in the world, that it's the deepest and all that crap, it's probably not and it doesn't suit everyone, that's more than clear, but what I'm saying is that it's absolutely essential to Minelab understand and learn! Then only you have in your hand a very perfect tool with which you can do almost magic, otherwise you have only an expensive stick.

Mgr. Oldrich Habrovansky - www.moraviadetect.cz
The author of this article has been using metal detectors Minelab for more than 12 years.