Questions about the Bounty Hunter Tracker IV

bbader61gv

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Jul 22, 2009
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37
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Pennsylvania
I dig with the sensitivity at 3 oclock, the distinction around 11 o clock, and I detect on the "tone" tab.

Question #1- I seem to only get strong signals within 3-5 inches. Is this deep enough to find silver coins? Does anyone else find silver coins with this detector or is it too "cheap".

Question #2- I have sacrificed gold in order to not dig up as much trash. (Because the distinction will have a broken signal for gold and trash.) I really am just looking for clad and silver, but I keep digging up trash, so should I raise my distinction a little? If I do will I start getting broken signals for silver, pennies, dimes, or quarters?

Question #3- What does the indicator meter, that ranges from 1-10, mean right in the middle?

Any answers to any questions are largely appreciated. Thank you guys!!
 
3-5 inches is about the depth you can find a coin at. I have found silver coins at 1 inch and as deep as 7 inches.
 
I dig with the sensitivity at 3 oclock, the distinction around 11 o clock, and I detect on the "tone" tab.

Question #1- I seem to only get strong signals within 3-5 inches. Is this deep enough to find silver coins? Does anyone else find silver coins with this detector or is it too "cheap".

Question #2- I have sacrificed gold in order to not dig up as much trash. (Because the distinction will have a broken signal for gold and trash.) I really am just looking for clad and silver, but I keep digging up trash, so should I raise my distinction a little? If I do will I start getting broken signals for silver, pennies, dimes, or quarters?

Question #3- What does the indicator meter, that ranges from 1-10, mean right in the middle?

Any answers to any questions are largely appreciated. Thank you guys!!

Bbader, I am a detectorist 4 years strong with the Tracker IV and I can assure you, that detector is not too cheap to find silver. I found mercury dimes and roosevelts with it, both at only a couple inches. What you have to do is spend time with the detector and learn it. They say, after 40 hours with the detector, one can start to accurately comprehend the machine.

A little edit, where you're saying distinction, that's called discrimination. ;) I always had the discerimination at 12:00, and dug only the solid low tones and solid high tones. Nickels and gold will be solid low tones. Take some jewelry, pop tabs, and nickels and play around with this....listen for those broken signals that some pop tabs give off, and listen to the solidity of the gold and nickel signals. Just spend time learning your detector.

**Remember, you will dig countless pull tabs and can slaw before your first gold, it takes time, but it will come!!**

As far as increasing the discrimination, coin signals should still ring clear, like I mentioned earlier, play around with the settings in your yard, and even build a coin garden! This will help you further understand your detector.

As far as the "Indication meter", the best I could make of it was if the target was large or very close to the surface, the needle would slap to 10. If it was small like bits of foil or deeper, the needle wouldn't jump as high or strongly to a 10. Hope this helps! HH
NC
 
i really appreciate your help. i will stick with the tracker. i know the machine very well i just need to figure out the tones and discrimination a little better.
 
This was some great information for me to, same questions i had you asked and were answered. I am new the MD and have my first metal detector, a BH Tracker IV, so now i have at least an understanding. The "coin bed" made me laugh but it makes sense!, Now all i have to do is wait for the snow to melt and get back out :), thanks the for the great info :D
 
I hunted for 1 1/2 seasons with the BH IV and found stuff (goodies and trash) much deeper than 3-4 inches. It got so I could tell a zinc penny from a copper penny just by tone. The copper would be a solid tone and the zinc would be 'crackly' I found my first 2 pieces of gold with it and they both sounded like nickels. It paid for itself 5x over and I'd still be using it if I hadn't decided I needed a little more machine. As for the needle thingy, I just ignored it because it never made sense to me. : ) Good Luck with your machine.
 
The Bounty Hunter Tracker IV was my first machine when I started 6 months ago. I've found 5 silvers with it so far...my first being a 1941 Walking Liberty half at 4 inches! I've found that having both knobs at the "2 o'clock" position seems to work pretty good for me.

That goes without saying that I've understandably dug lots of trash, although recently I've been getting better at discriminating the good from the bad.

My hunting buddy has an Etrac, and on one outing I even found a 1909 Barber quarter that his machine incredibly missed! All we can figure is that his coil didn't pass over it. He must have barely missed it...we were both stunned!
 
Bounty Hunter Tracker IV is a great little machine for the price. It was what I started out with about a year and a half ago. It depends where you go really. I've found a couple silver coins with it before, and a bunch of nice relics. This machine can find you the oldies. It discriminates very well. I useualy had my discrimination all the way up. And I used the tone mode. My sensitivity useually was around 2 to 3 O' clock.
 
First of all -forget the meter. It's a worthless piece of !!!!. I have fought back and forth with the tech to have the useless thing removed. It's jokingly called a "kick" meter in BH language-and that's about all it does is kick.:laughing: The idea behind it is that the harder it "kicks", the shallower the target. As for settings, in the Tone Mode, turn the thing all the way CCW to the almost off position. Now take a nickel in a hand WITHOUT jewelry on and slowly rotate the dial CW until the nickel gives a clear low tone. You're set! Nickels and sta-tabs will give a low tone, tabs will give a broken tone, and clad will give a high tone. 5" is about max, although by overlapping your coil you can hit some deep coins. The large coil is misleading-I use the small inner coil to use for a sweep guide and that will increase your depth. Strangely, you can locate some large objects over a foot down-it's the coins that give problems with the depth, because of the coil. I have a 4" coil and it will match the 8" coil for depth on COINS. I used one for about 10 years-it was my favorite. I tried to write a booklet on it and the BH rep at that time told me he would write my info and give me credit for it-nothing else-just credit. I walked out the door,.:mad:
 
I run my BH in tone mode with the disc at about 2 (the screw) and my sensitivity almost all the way up. I read this on another thread and it works well with this machine. If the machine gets a little chatty I turn the sensitivity down a tiny bit. I dig any solid high tones and the broken high tones as well. My oldest coin was down over 6 inches and was a broken high tone. With this method you'll miss some gold but if you are after coins than you'll probably like this method and will definitely find silver. If you get a really high tone and lift your coil straight up off the ground and it disappears quickly it's probably a coin and if it remains at 6-8 inches it's probably a can or trash. Probably is the key because it could be a recent drop ( I dig all high tones). I really like this machine and it stays in my trunk at all times.
 
Silversmith45, the 101 is the exact same machine as the Tracker IV. The fast tracker is just a sens. Knob and the disc. knob. There is no toggle for tone and all metal.
 
I don't see a Like button, but thanks for this post. I'm just getting started, with the Tr 4, and between not knowing where to go and finding a lot of trash, I'm getting more uncertain. (Massachusetts)
 
Most of the time I hunt in the discrimination mode with the sensitivity as high as I can and I will run the discrimination knob at around 12 o’clock. This does a pretty good job of filtering out most iron except for the occasional large plate like material. I have found a silver coin, several clad and several wheat pennies running that setting. Easily finds anything brass or copper as well. The trash thing, yes you will find that too. Depends where you are hunting. I was in a park hunting an old home site a couple of weeks back in what I believe was the dump area. I found several tin lids, but also 3 wheat pennies in amongst the other stuff so you just never know. I have no doubt it can find coins and it can certainly see targets several inches deep. I do not pay much attention to the meter. I have not really found it to be much help as it is so erratic.
 
Question #1- I seem to only get strong signals within 3-5 inches. Is this deep enough to find silver coins? Does anyone else find silver coins with this detector or is it too "cheap".

Question #2- I have sacrificed gold in order to not dig up as much trash. (Because the distinction will have a broken signal for gold and trash.) I really am just looking for clad and silver, but I keep digging up trash, so should I raise my distinction a little? If I do will I start getting broken signals for silver, pennies, dimes, or quarters?

Question #3- What does the indicator meter, that ranges from 1-10, mean right in the middle?

Old post for sure, but still applies so here are my answers after three years using two BH Tracker IV's that I found silver/jewelry/and tons of clad with.

Question #1- My first silver was a 1926 Mercury dime sitting half exposed on the surface and it found it just fine. The Tracker IV can find silver in the 1-5" range, the depth I get on coin targets; although, many areas may have been landscaped or fill added in recent years. If that is the case the coins are now too deep for a Tracker IV if there are any coins actually left at that location. People have been detecting since the 1950s (using WW II surplus mine detectors) onward and most areas have been detected countless times in 70+ years.

Question #2- Even with the discrimination at the full maximum the Tracker IV will still find trash (same as any mid-level $500 detector I owned will too). Trash such as big pieces of iron, crushed soda cans, soda bottle caps, and other trash near the surface. You will be missing nearly all the coins and other goodies buried, and the higher the discrimination the less soil depth you search too.

For the best results put the discrimination at 25% (9 O'clock setting) where it will discrimination iron. That way coins that are a bit deeper are not overlooked (the deeper the coin the more the signal degrades to a trash reading). For full depth do not use any discrimination, but you will be digging non-stop trash too.

Question #3- The meter is a selling gimmick and nothing more. I heard a service tech call it a dancing speaker test - if the speaker makes a sound the meter moves. Personally I always opened up my Tracker IV's and clipped the black negative meter lead wire to get longer battery life and to remove the distraction.

I don't see a Like button, but thanks for this post. I'm just getting started, with the Tr 4, and between not knowing where to go and finding a lot of trash, I'm getting more uncertain. (Massachusetts)

The like button for the forum (vBulletin style) is labelled, "Did you find this post helpful?
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" on the bottom right of each post. For places you can detect see this article for a extensive list. Then of course there is always getting permission for even more places. There is tons of trash everywhere almost, and nearly unavoidable - anywhere humans have been there is trash (coins and jewelry and other finds are trash themselves).
 
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