Tesoro Compadre vs BH Tracker IV

I know the Compadre very well but I'm wondering how it compares to the Tracker IV. Never had BH and Hobby Lobby has them for cheap, especially with a coupon. I'm just looking for a nice "throw away" haha. Been awhile since I posted here. Hope y'all are still swinging it hard.

aguerrero56 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I know the Compadre very well but I'm wondering ho
> w it compares to the Tracker IV. Never had BH and
> Hobby Lobby has them for cheap, especially with a
> coupon. I'm just looking for a nice "throw away" h
> aha. Been awhile since I posted here. Hope y'all a
> re still swinging it hard.


I doubt if any of the members on this forum use a Bounty Hunter or Tesoro Compadre.---Most (or all) of the members here are into the upper class detectors.-----Myself, I've never used a Bounter Hunter (anything)---but---have used the Compadre a bit & it's a nice little detector (effective in some situations).----My wife & I thought enough of them to give a couple of Compadres to our two grandsons.-----Sad to see Tesoro go out of business.---I don't know where a person would get one repaired if the need would arise.-----Del

Hi aguerrero56,

I started out with a Tracker IV in Jan 2004 and have owned,,,,,I don't know,,,maybe 6 of them over the years since then as I like it and they are cheap to buy, I find them for 20 bucks in garage sales every so often and can't seem to walk away from them. I also own and use a Compadre on a fairly regular basis, mostly with a Cleansweep coil mounted on it.

The BH Tracker IV is not a deep detector, maybe 5" on a dime on a good day. And it doesn't have a very fast recovery speed, even with a DD coil mounted on it. So right off the bat just know that the Compadre is both deeper and faster responding.

I like it mainly because the audio in Tone mode is very good. It has an adjustable tone break that you can move around and use as an audio notch. The low tone is nice the high tone is nice and the tone break point is very blended hi low tone. You can hear the target response. Rusty objects sound rusty, round object sound round. sharp edges sound sharp. Its a very difficult audio to find in higher performing detectors. The closest I found to it is Tesoro's Golden Sabre II or the Pantera, only the Tracker IV has a better low tone.

Anyway,...it a grass roots detector. 0 to 5" inches. At fresh water beaches I found the moisture adds about 2" to the depth.

Too high a sensitivity setting moves some targets up in conductivity, or at least in my ground. 3:00 / 3:30 is about good, too much more than that moved all the nickels past the tone break I had set up and made them sound a lot like zinc pennies.

It would make a cheap fun companion to the single tone Compadre.

HH
Mike

PS...I have some published field tests...Just send me a PM with your email and I'll forward them over.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2020 02:31AM by Mike Hillis.

Thanks Mike...liked your Post. Agree some two tone machines can be adjusted so that the tone break is a type of third tone. In fact some set them so that zinc pennies would be identified audibly in the middle tone (tone break). Some good stuff can still be found with the cheapest or oldest of machines.

I owned a BH 101, which was the same machine, 20 years ago, it was my first machine and I set the knobs , both at 12:00 and hunted, dug everything, saved all the clad and bought another machine in a year, I did mostly playgrounds and the 101 had a sweet sound for gold and I dug a lot back then, it was the inner city, found a lot of change ,gold and needles, I still have it and use it for work, have 9 other machines now so I pick the machine that fits the area I'm hunting, if I saw them for 50 or less, I'd buy them and give them to my friends kids, never owned a Tesoro, I'm a Whites, Minlab Garrett type of guy

Spot on review Mike. Amazing that the Tracker IV (or its other branding as Bounty Hunter, Pioneer, Radio Shack, etc models) has remained in production all these years, the only significant tweak that I know of was the change from through-hole to surface mount components ... and it still has the 'hood ornament' meter! Wonder what the total production of these is to date?