Yes hi! It's been a while. I have news! I received something very special yesterday, and I am very happy about it.


I looked up the model number of it, and can't find much about it unfortunately.

Also, I'm on new medicine.

As for Music, I'm into a band called Japan now. They weren't super popular apparently so their records are very hard to find for a good price. Sigh.

Here's my favorite song of theirs.

So pleased for you on your new music.

It's been 29 years this fall since I have had a phonograph player. I had just moved across Dodge City, to my new house after my divorce. The stereo I had ended up side down. I took that as a sign for me to get a new system . Discovered a new thing called a Compact Disc Player. Wow! Never heard about it at the time. Bought it. Cost me $450 back in '84. I looked around for CDs to play.

I bought three of the four in town. Amazing at the time.

You have brought back memories.

So glad to see you back here again. I have been thing about how you were doing.

Dave

Well, I've been looking for one for several years. This is all very exciting!

I'm flattered that you were thinking about me. I'll try to post more often.

.
Hey, Sweetheart!

Let us know Steve's Make & Model#
it would help us to know what to search for
should 'he' need replacement parts and so forth.

AH! The "OLD Penny on the Tone Arm" trick...
...yeah brings back memories...

OK, Bad News First:
The MAJOR issue you're going to encounter is
REPLACEMENT Needles (Called Cartridges) that's
the little snap-in unit that holds a jewel chip
(usually Sapphire because of it's Hardness)
because no matter how hard the jewel, THEY STILL
CHIP AND WEAR OUT Pretty Darn Quick!!!
WARNING: Worn-Out Needles will TOTALLY WRECK
A Record In Very Short Order (one or two plays)
especially with a Penny On the Tone Arm... that's
supposed to be perfectly Balanced so that the
"needle" barely touches the surface of the record.

BASICS: "NEEDLE" is a misnomer. They stopped
using Steel NEEDLES back in your Grand Mother's Day.
(as I said earlier, they switched to polished chips
of jewels (later still, Synthetic Jewels)) to increase
the "life" of the 'needle'... and thus, reduce the
amount of Wear-Damage they inflict on your
precious, and I imaging RARE Vinyl Records.

Second, There's no real "Surface" on a record, just
GROOVES... along the side of which the the music
is microscopically etched. If you chip away the
microscopic vinyl that causes the needle to vibrate,
that then gets translated into electrical impulses,
cause the magnets in the speakers to vibrate, that
causes the air to vibrate, which the ear translates
into SOUND... better yet... MUSIC!

As a dull needle scrapes away those microscopic
bits of vinyl from the inside of each groove, it can
now be heard as "HISS" or worser still "POP" ...so
annoyingly familiar to us "old geezers"

IOW, Save your rare & precsious Vinyl until you
locate a source of the now obsolete needle cartridges.

NEXT: The purpose of the TWO Cassette Decks, is of
course, for "DUBBING"... the old term for Creating
Your Own "Mixes" or Copies of Music-to-Tape, in
Steve's case... the option of copying Vinyl recordings
(thus extending the "Life" of the record) or CDs
which were still relatively rare---back then--- to a
more familiar and available source, A TAPE-PLAYER

Hey Guys... remember those big ol' personal
tape players we used to tote around prior to single
MP3 Players.. and eventually those now famous
"THOUSAND-SONGS-IN-YOUR-POCKET"iPods?
(wot're they up to now? 80,000 Songs In Your Pocket?)

...anyway...
Find out Steve's Make & Model Number (usually
located on the back of the unit) Score yerself a
fresh cartridge ASAP...
..and have FUN with Your New Tech-Toy.

SOUND EXCHANGE BLOG
.

I wish I had some blank tapes, creating mixtapes sounds fun.
Now, I looked on the back of Steve. He's a magnavox fcd-196 bk02. I have a feeling styli are going to be expensive...

One of the beauties of "4 Track Cassette Tapes"
is the ability to Erase Them & Record over them
multiple times.
But 1) Don't go wreaking your dad's old recordings
without asking first... Who Knows.. He might be the
Soul-Owner of Grateful Dead Bootlegs , er sumpthin'!
(ONE Of a kind, and irreplaceable since Jerry G.
is no longer with us. ((R.I.P.)) )
And 2) Be aware that The SAME CopyRight Laws
apply to "cutting tapes" as "Burning .MP3s !

You can mix a personal tape for yourself, but
Selling Them is a HUGE "No-No"

Otherwise, Have A Blast!
We sure did!

Oh.. 3) I wouldn't "tape over" store-bought tapes,
they were even more expensive than vinyl albums
...once upon a time...

One cannot accidentally tape over store bought cassettes as they have tabs that prevent it. One needs to break the tabs out if one wants to record over it.

Other way around: if there is no tab, you can't record. The store-bought album cassettes just have an indentation -- if you want to tape over them, the easiest way is to put a piece of scotch tape over the indentation and you're good to go ;-)

I stand corrected. Yes, now I remember.. you broke out the tabs to stop them being over recorded on blanks you had recorded.

...and put a piece of sticky-tape over the
knock-out tabs to make it recordable once again.

not very effective for security purposes
but they helped prevent accidental erasures.