Bounty Hunter Tracker IV sounds

jrusso1212

New Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2013
Messages
3
Hi I am a newbie to metal detecting and just recently purchased the Bounty Hunter Tracker IV. I read the manual to get an idea of the settings but I'm having some issues with it. I take it to the beach quite often and find coins and some silver rings very easily but I recently took it to the beach and had someone ask me if I could help them find a gold ring they lost. So I looked in the area they were sitting and found it but I was a little upset because it wasn't a distinct low tone like the manual says for gold and copper. It was a low kind of broken tone which I thought was supposed to mean junk. I tried it at home with a gold ring and gold earring and it was the same noise. It is a very low strength tone as well, not sure if that has to do with size but then again it gives strong signals for coins and they are small. It gives a loud low tone for pennies so not sure why I'm not getting the same thing for gold. I'm very confused:?:
I have my settings set as: sensitivity at 3 o'clock, disc. at 12 and I'm on tone setting. Any help would be great because I don't want to go over what sounds like a broken tone and not dig it thinking it's a pull tab or something.
 
There will always be variables, so you can't always go by the 'book' and at home test results. Beaches will have different minerals in the sand, there could be other trash within the 'viewing' distance of the coil, and other things. When looking for a lost piece of gold, I would always dig EVERY signal just to be sure. Glad you were able to find the ring and good luck on future hunts. : )
 
Broken tone is just targets around the spot you set disc. Below low, around it broken, above high. So if you set just above where nickel becomes solid low most pulltabs will be broken but so will gold in pull tab range. Whether set low on disc around foil or higher around zinc targets around where set will be broken. I would just use all metal on the beach and recover whatever hits. You'll get 6" depth instead of 5" in tone or disc mode.
 
Sounds like you are doing pretty good with your T4. I own a T4 and like it a lot! After much experimentation, I have found that setting the discrimination knob to the 2 o'clock position will give a better low tone signal on gold rings than the suggested 12 o'clock. There is a phillips head screw on the face plate that is right at the 2 o'clock position. Just point the knob marking right at that and see if that helps. Also, when at the 2 o'clock position, zinc pennies will give a low tone with a short high pitched chirp at the end, but copper pennies, dimes and quarters will give a high tone only. This is a good way to keep from digging zinc pennies if you don't want them. Hope this helps!
 
Welcome to the world/frustration of gold jewelry hunting. Even the best detectors will have a hard time distinguishing between a 14K gold ring and an old pull tab, especially in mineralized soil. If you stick around this forum long enough, you'll find that the only way to be successful at finding gold jewelry and nickels is to dig every low and low-broken signal you come across. You'll dig way more than your fair share of pull tabs and can slaw, but at least you can be 99% sure you're not missing the gold. You'll see the successful gold jewelry hunters will have a bucket full of pull tabs for every ring they find. That's just the way it is. I've tested this out with my Tracker IV and even when I set the disc. just enough so I get a low signal, it'll break as soon as the ground conditions change.
Welcome to the forum! Lots of great info here. :beers:
 
Thanks for all the great tips everyone! I think I'm going to keep the settings the same or maybe adjust the disc. knob a little higher like Kreeper suggested. I really like using the tone mode so I think I'm going to keep it at that, and I'm just going to dig it up whenever there's a hit. Even if it's all pull tabs or junk at least I'll know I'm not passing up on anything valuable!
 
Thanks for all the great tips everyone! I think I'm going to keep the settings the same or maybe adjust the disc. knob a little higher like Kreeper suggested. I really like using the tone mode so I think I'm going to keep it at that, and I'm just going to dig it up whenever there's a hit. Even if it's all pull tabs or junk at least I'll know I'm not passing up on anything valuable!
Take the disc knob in the tone mode and rotate it from full CCW CW until a nickel just gives a smooth low tone. It will go from high tone to mixed tone and finally to the low tone=now you're set. Nickels will give the low tone, tabs a mixed tone, and coins a high tone. Back in the 80's we did this and it was still never entered in the instruction manual.
 
Jrusso1212,

I use my Tracker IV at the beach a lot myself. My favorite settings are Sensitivity about 1 O'clock, Discrimination about 1 O'clock and Tone setting selected. This gives me a the solid tones you are seeking.

Use these sample pieces and experiment with the settings: quarter, nickel, penny, dime, a piece of aluminum foil and a gold ring. Air test them for the different sounds they each make. Just make sure your coil is not near any type of metal when air testing.

Then switch to All Metal mode and test again. See what they all sound like again.....are any of them eliminated? Then try them with the switch in Discrimination. Again test them all to see what they sound like.....and which ones are eliminated?

Experiment like this just before going out on a hunt. I still air test before heading out to hunt. This helps me remember the different settings and tones.

Learn the tones and you will learn to REALLY enjoy this simple, cost effective unit.

HH y'all!!

Frankj3 (Frank)
 
I realize this is an old post, but for Tracker users I would like to comment that the nickel/foil low tone can be more easily missed than the high/mixed tones. If you get a low "scratch" sound while detecting at your normal sweep speed, it would be a great idea to slow down the sweep speed and then judge the target at this tone level. Good targets like the nickel,rings, will then come in clearer, but the trash like foil will still give a weak,broken signal. At monotone regular discrimination, the high tone will make the nickel and foil targets more discernible, but, of course, you won't have the tone ID.
 
Back
Top Bottom