Backcountry Access Tracker DTS beacon

After taking an avalanche class last year through Exum mountaineering, I decided to purchase A BCA Tracker. This beacon is extremely affordable, allows you to locate multiple burials and hone in on one, and is very easy to use as long as you know how to use a beacon. Batteries last a long time, the strap to wear the beacon is very comfortable and you almost don't notice its there. Definitely a great buy

Easy, accurate, well respected. I highly recommend this for all levels of backcountry travelers. The ONLY beacon I like more is the Pieps DPS standard.

this is my first beacon, and really dont think i'll ever need a different one. the thing is super easy to use/train with. and its pretty low bulk so wearing it under your jacket is that bad! Also with the batteries, so much life to it!

Much simpler than the Pieps beacon or old analog beacons. Not the best technically but simplicity matters at least as much when in an adrenaline-filled search

Lots of the pros rely on this one and so I hopped on board and have been very satisfied. Listening to guys like Jim Conway talk about their preference of this beacon over others convinced me to buy this one and I have been very satisfied and assured with it out in the backcountry. It gives a very accurate signal for searches and hopefully nobody will ever need to find mine outside of a drill.

Great, easy-to-use beacon. Fairly small and strap nooks it into my side perfectly. Don't feel it riding the arctic cat on the way up, and cruise with no hangups on the way down on the Burton!

Very easy to use. I like the fact that it tells you how much battery juice you have left when you turn in on. With practice, which you should do with any beacon, I have no problems with it. Our entire group carried this type of beacon on our last trip and when an avalanche struck, we were well prepared. Our buried friend was found quickly and was dug out with minimal injuries. Admittedly, I don't have any experience with a multiple burial situation....and hope I never do. I highly recommend it.

I got this beacon back a few years ago and out of the box I was amused. At first I thought great, turn it on and it works...! But when I looked at it hard I noticed... 1. I had to turn it on, it wasn't just automatically on when I put it on. 2. It was big and bulky 3. it has a short range, like less then 40m 4. The lights are indicating where the flux line is 5. The numbers mean very little, especially in a multiple burial scenario. 6. When in close (5m) for the fine search the beacon is not very good at all. 7. It hears everything, so you will ultimately be able to find that transmitting beacon. 8. I was way faster at finding someone with my F1 focus that was 10years old. So I sold my Tracker right away and got a different beacon that actually delivered on its promises. I am sooo tired of high end PR selling product that is less then it is made out to be. Considering the technology in Tracker is now more then a decade old it is hard to believe anyone would buy one. Everything else on the market is a better deal. Don't read this wrong, the tracker works, but not like they say it does. Ask any professional patroller who has used many types of beacons in practice and they say the same thing, "the tracker sucks!"

I just used this beacon on a 3-day yurt trip in Utah. It is super simple to use, which to me is of the utmost importance when dealing with a burial. No fumbling around. Luckily we didn't encounter any real avalanche burials, but we simulated a bunch of stuff and I definitely feel confident having this beacon strapped to my body.

The tracker is easy to learn, lightweight, and very user friendly.

The kind of equipment you don't really want to have to actually use! In practice it is very good. Overall easy to use, but since my purchase I heard (not confirmed) that other units may transmit farther. That could be very important some day. You should check it out.

This beacon is ideal for resort backcountry. No nonsense, easy to use. If the bulk of your backcountry consists of ducking ropes and hiking off the lift then this is the beacon for you.

I bought this beacon based on the reviews of other people on the site and other friends. I just took my Avalanche Level I and the instructor recomended this beacon as the best too. We used it a ton in the class and it worked great with all the other beacons everyone had. Overall great device very ergonomic and easy to use. Make sure to practice multiple burials a lot. Tricky w/ any beacon.

I just realized that my review from many years ago is still archived and contains a potentially confusing reference: "Membrane buttons can be a bit hard to press if wearing very bulky winter gloves." Starting in Fall of 2004, BCA redesigned the housing with buttons that are far easier to operate with bulky winter gloves, so please ignore that part of my old review!

This beacon is easy to use. Tested it out through a few beacon drills and I carry it with me on all my tours. So far I haven't had to use it in a real life/death situation (hope I don't have to), but with the drills and the Tracker's simple design, I think it will work well for me when the stinky stuff hits the fan and the adrenaline's pumping.

Trackers are great. Grabbed 2 of these for myself and my wife as we're getting more into winter backcountry activities and had tremendous success with them during an Canadian Avalanche Association course we took. Others were using Pieps SOS F1-ND transceivers, and while they worked ok, my wife and I were finding people using our Trackers on average maybe a 30 secs to a minute faster as complete newbies.

this beacon is easy to use, accurate, and anyone can use it. i used it for all my avalanche training, and testing. if you can turn this beacon on, you can save a life.

This Tracker DTS got the NOD!! Who else has one like this.Was the comment from the Diammond Helli guide out at Powder Mt.Thats what they like to see out there. Great stuff that is REAL easy to use.I like the way it straps on and has a little cup like pocket that it fits in while you skiing.Comfort was great, fit, light weight, very nice.This is what I'll buy my sons when we start backcountry skiing together next year NO DOUBT.Thanks for making me feel safer out there in the backcountry.

I'm a beacon newbie and approached my first outing at the Snowbird RTC with trepidation. The beacon however, performed flawlessly and was very intuitive. I found myself getting to within a meter of the targets very quickly (2-3 minutes).

Very easy to use beacon! Consistently had the quickest times in beacon drills, even with inexperienced users. Experienced users were super quick - which means practice, practice, practice.

The reviews that I read about the tracker nailed it's performance. It's fast and very accurate. My time locating my friends beacon over 35 meters was only 2-3 minutes. I wish my friend would sell his outdated beacon and by the Tracker. That's NO joke!

It is a must if you want to ski any backcrountry at Mt. Baker. I have never used a beacon before my last trip, and I do not know why. I can not believe I have skiied any backcrounty before without a beacon. The money is worth a life.

My son had me order this for his Christmas present and he knows what is best. He is an avid snowboarder in Colorado and wants to be safe in the mountains. For the shovel, I should have ordered the one with the probe. He will take care of it.

I used this beacon for a few days and was satisfied with it. I prefer the peips dsp, seems to be easier to use and have better range.

I love this beacon because it's so easy to use, and that's what counts, right? The harness is easy to put on and comfortable too.

I have used several beacons and this is the easiest to use. Although i personally use a different piece this is the one I bought for my brother. I feel safe in his novice hands with this beacon, even though I let him lead the way on most descents. We have been practicing a lot lately and his skills are improving much more rapidly than mine did, and I am positive that this tool is an integral part of his rapid discovery. I hope to have many more days with him.

This was my first Beacon, and a phenomenal one for a first beacon at that. I just upgraded to the Pieps due to requirements for work (patrol), however when I hand a beacon to a friend who doesn't have one to use... it will be this one. There are a couple inherent problems with the tracker- definitely take the time to get to know these. They are by no means debilitating, just things you need to be aware of.

This is what all my backcounty partners use. Super easy to use - hopefully I'll never have to.

I used this same device in an avalanche certification class. Awesome product, easy to use, and easy to understand. was taught how to use in under 10 minutes, and perfectly understood how it worked. I highly recommend this Avalanche Tracker DTS Beacon. I wouldn't go out in the backcountry with any other beacon.

I took my new BCA Tracker DTS beacon to Level 1 Avalanche training. During our two days of field work I compared it to the beacons used by my classmates. It did not have quite the range of one other beacon. It was however far and away the easiest to use. For a user like me, two to three days a month, the BCA Tracker DTS was definitely the right choice.

The Tracker is the best beacon I've tested. In practice sessions I have found all hidden beacons (in trees, under rocks, buried 3 ft.). It starts receiving at 40 meters but really starts to locate at 36 meters. Locate time on any hidden beacon for me was 3 minutes or less from 100-yards away. I highly recommend it.

This Beacon is very easy to use. It is so straight forward and easy to use. I have practiced with it many times and hopefully I will never truly need to use it. The Tracker is the perfect introduciton device to backcountry riding.

It is amazingly fast and easy as a beginner to find single burial. Not only as a beginner but pros use it too. The guys of TGR (Teton Gravity Research) used it when making Soul Purpose. People like Jeremy Jones and Victoria Jealous used it. SO it’s simply the best out there right now.

The Beacon has performed magnificently. It takes a little practice to master locating other beacons and it is extremely easy to use. Even multiple signals become fast to locate. The harness is great as it is very comfortable and allows usage of the search feature while keeping the beacon attached to yourself. Overall it is easy to learn, easy to use and easy to wear.

For a single burial, or a multiple burial where you can turn off each beacon as it is found, this beacon is amazingly fast for a novice, and gets even faster with more practice. However, multi burials in which each beacon stays on as it is found can be very tricky and require significant practice. Also, although the shorter range (as compared to analog beacons) is almost always not a problem, occasionally it can interfere w/ the search if the beacons are aligned such that the range is at its absolute minimum. Membrane buttons can be a bit hard to press if wearing very bulkly winter gloves.

Couldn't ask for more in a beacon, easy to use, good instructions, took it out on a 3 day backcountry skiing course and had no problems with our beacon search drills.

This is by far the easiest beacon to use. It's so simple that I found practicing with it is kind of redundant. It's like practicing walking on flat ground (sober). The range is pretty lame, but realistically I think it would be plenty in almost any real-life situation.

Easy to use, comfortable harness. Unless you're a professional, I can't imagine using another beacon.

At the pressure of my snowmobile riding buddies I needed to find a beacon. I chose the tracker based on the ease of use and am very happy I did. I consistently am one of the first to locate a hidden transceiver when we practice in mock scenarios. Easy to use, almost idiot proof... Just the way I like it. REM7600 in Idaho