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Old Sony 250 tape recorder meets my TV

My tape recorder is probably 30-40 years old. It plays 4-track tapes. Twenty or so years ago, I had it tuned up. I recently stumbled onto it in a closet and realized that I have some old tapes that I recorded family moments on, and it might be wise to convert them to digital.

I set it up a few weeks ago with a PA amp with speakers I have, and found that it more or less worked on a commercially produced tape, 7" reel. It was a bit slow, but I could tell music was there. Aside from that, when I stop the recorder it makes something of a grunt.

I did open the top and examine matters, but have no service guide to attempt some sort of repair.

Since the PA amp and speakers are hard to put up for further exploration, I thought I'd taking the audio from the recorder to a video port on a TV set. I couldn't get any sound at all. Am I missing something? Comments?

What I'm really trying to do is determine whether there is any recording on the family tapes I have.

Reply to
W. eWatson
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Use _extreme_ caution. I've found that old audio tapes have a tendency to stick together, and also are often stiff. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
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I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Mine look as fresh as when I first played them.

Reply to
W. eWatson 

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Video???
Reply to
John Fields

Solved. I was plugging the audio into the wrong ports on the TV. The black raised letters around the plugs made it hard to tell what each one was. That plus the darkness in the area around the TV.

There is static when I play any of the tapes. I'm not sure if that's coming from the player or the tapes. I don't have any clean tapes.

It would be good to have a service manual.

Reply to
W. eWatson

You might want to check this out if you have old tapes.

formatting link

I work in video and old 2" tapes almost always require baking to get them t o play. At my current and former employers we use a food dehydrator from 12

5 to 135°F for 8-12 hours for 2" and less time for thinner tapes. This is particularly useful for tapes 20-40 years old. With the hundreds of tapes I've seen get baked, nearly all were repaired and not one was made worse th an it was.

G²

Reply to
stratus46

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