"N9NEO" ) writes:
I probably should have asked for this before I bought one.

I bought a Sony at circuit city for 24bucks. It seems to work ok but I
don't think the quality is so good. I opened her up and poked around.
Real cheezy. I'll be leaving this in the desert out in California
along with my truck full of camping gear and a couple of loops. I'm
flying back and so I'm ditching everything cept the radios and tapes
and a few clothes.

When I get back I'll probably buy another recorder so I am going to
know what I should buy. I had to buy a damn 60db reducer to drive the
Sony tape deck from my Degen that has a standard 1v output.

Also I wonder if I should use 60min tapes or 120min tapes.

UNless this is a portable application, surely the best solution is
an actual cassette deck (if you really want to stay with tape). You
get line inputs, with volume controls and no AGC. You get level
indicators. You can select the type of tape (regular, CRO2, metal),
and decide whether to use Dolby or not. The line output makes it
easy to hook to your computer when you want to turn the tapes into
CDROMs. SOme even do auto-reverse. They all have pause controls,
letting you prepare for recording without letting the tape roll.

The only disadvantage, other than size, is that they generally
don't have a means of remotely controlling the motor, so it's
messier to make it start recording at some specified time.

And of course, few people are using cassettes anymore (I notice
I'm not even seeing "Walkman" type portable cassette players at
garage sales much, it's now progressed to the equivalent in CD players
for only a few dollars), so they are plentiful at garage sales
and rummage sales, and real cheap. I got one a few years ago, a dual
deck, for all of one dollar. I brought home another one, it seemed
a bit fancier, from a rummage sale when we were putting the boxes away
afterwards; nobody had bought the two that were for sale.

Since they are cheap, one could open it up and break the wire to
the motor, bringing out the leads for remote on/off, just like
the portable cassette recorders of years gone by. Most use a low
voltage DC motor, just like the portable cassette recorders, so it's
the same thing.

I"ve bought long prerecorded tapes that have become mangled on some
cassette players, so I wouldn't recommend 120 minute tapes. They
have to make the tape thin in order to fit it all inside the cassette
shell, and that makes it too fragile. I've never had a problem with
90 minute tapes, though.

Michael