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Conference tekvax::electro_hobby

Title:	Electro_Hobby
Notice:	TEKVAX may be up-and-down 'till we get settled in..
Moderator:	TEKVAX::KOPEC

Created:	Thu Jan 15 1987
Last Modified:	Tue May 20 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1831
Total number of notes:	14297

1826.0. "Dictaphone only plays at highspeed" by ENGPTR::MCMAHON () Mon Jan 27 1997 18:34

    My wife does medical transcription at home and her transcriber started
    acting up. Basically, it's a micro-cassette recorder/player which
    allows her to control the speed of playback. It's a Panasonic about a
    year old. The problem is that when it is in forward play mode, it will
    only playback at the highest speed, making the doctors sound like the
    Chipmunks on speed. I opened it up and cleaned it with Freon and swabs
    but that didn't make any difference. I checked Radio Shlock and they
    didn't have a demagnetizer that would fit that size cassette.
    
    Any ideas on what the problem could be and how I can go about fixing
    it?
    
    Thanks.
    
    Pat McMahon

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1826.1		REGENT::POWERS		`Tue Jan 28 1997 09:02`	5
	Is it a constant fast speed or a warbling fast speed. If the latter, I'd suspect the pinch roller and capstan aren't closing on the tape and it's beeing pulled through the read head at fast-forward spped. If the former, I don't have a clue.
1826.2	constant	ENGPTR::MCMAHON		`Tue Jan 28 1997 09:57`	2
	It's a constant fast speed. And it does this both with the foot pedal attached and detached.
1826.3		WRKSYS::INGRAHAM	Andy	`Tue Jan 28 1997 19:14`	11
	Just an FYI ... the demagnetizer won't help this problem. Is it playing at a speed that it's normally capable of doing? It may use a variable speed motor, whose drive electronics won't throttle back to the reduced voltage. At my college radio station, I vaguely remember they had cart tape machines with a fast-forward mode, where one of the drive transistors would occasionally short, putting it permanently in that fast speed. Does it record at the correct speed?
1826.4	No way to record	ENGPTR::MCMAHON		`Mon Feb 03 1997 14:16`	6
	Hi, sorry I haven't gotten back in here sooner. I can't check to see if it also records in fast mode as the microphone is an optional item which my wife didn't get (she didn't need it). I guess we'll send it off to Panasonic and see what they say about it. Thanks for the suggestions.