adamson@ITD.NRL.NAVY.MIL (Brian Adamson) (02/14/90)
Thanks to Doug Kopp, member of this list, I was able to fix the humming problem I was experiencing on my tape recorder. It may happen to you, so I'll give a brief describe. I heard a 60 Hz hum whenever I monitored the tape head of my 8 track on certain tracks. It sounded like feedback sort of and only occurred intermittently. Anyway, Mr. Kopp's son had experienced a similar problem with a cassette deck. He traced down the problem and found a faulty (dirty) electro-mechanical relay which switches rhe the heads between record and playback. He used tuner tonic solvent and the scratchy surface of a matchbook as super-fine file to clean the little relay and fixed the problem. Well, I disassembled my 8-track (major apprehension here), found the relays, popped them open, sprayed the little buggers, and voilla!. . .no more hum. Could have been costly, but $2.19 for Radio Shack Tuner Tonic ain't bad. (Also took the noise and static out of the amplifier I use for a studio monitor when sprayed on the Volume and Balance potentiometers.) It's miracle cure, no snake oil for sure. Brian Adamson