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  #1  
Old 10-26-2009, 11:34 AM
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bgadow bgadow is offline
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Shopping for Audio Tape

I did a bunch of taping (off the air, primarily) through the 90s. Lots of old time radio shows, other stuff. Hundreds of tapes. I stopped because I never had time to listen to them and, besides, I was ending up with lots of duplicates.

There is a radio program I have decided to start taping each week, 4 hours. My supply of old stock TDK's that I picked up somewhere will be depleted soon. So, before I go shopping, what is out there these days? I don't need anything great, just a good, reliable general purpose tape-and something that won't cost too, too much. Anything mail order I should look at?
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Old 10-29-2009, 11:10 AM
site123a site123a is offline
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Are you using a cassette recorder that records at 1/4 tape speed? Or one that records at normal speed.
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Old 10-29-2009, 02:05 PM
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Normal speed. Back when I was doing a lot of fire/police scanning I thought hard about buying such a unit but never did. I have a dual record, autoreverse deck. If 120min. tapes were more reliable I would be all set for a 4 hour program, not sure if I trust them that much though. Or have they improved over the years?
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Old 10-29-2009, 02:18 PM
RetroHacker RetroHacker is offline
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When I used to tape long radio programs, I used to use video tape. No, really. A Hi-Fi stereo VHS VCR does a very good job of recording audio. Hook it up to a standalone tuner, and you can even set up the timer to record while you're away. And you can get eight hours on a standard tape in LP mode.

As for regular cassettes, last time I bought some, I got them from Batteries and Butter - they still had CrO2 tapes in stock, which have been getting hard to find as of late.

-Ian
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Old 10-29-2009, 02:35 PM
site123a site123a is offline
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110 minute cassettes are still more reliable then 120min tapes.

You do have other options tho, like streaming the radio station on your computer and using a program to record it (would be the cheapest option).

Or buy a c.crane VersaCorder, it can record 3:30 minutes of talk on each side of a 110min tape, the good thing about this recorder is that you can program it to stop in between commercial brakes.

But if money isn't a factor, I would recommand getting a MP3 recorder w/ build-in AM/FM radio instead.

Last edited by site123a; 10-29-2009 at 02:59 PM.
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Old 10-29-2009, 03:23 PM
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Thanks for some good options. I am decidely low-tech. That means, the only CD players I have are DVD players, no CD in any of my personal vehicles, etc. I do need to do some upgrades, mostly so I can share some things.

I have gone the VCR route a couple times. For a number of years I recorded the MRN broadcasts of the Daytona 500 and that is how I did it once.
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Old 04-04-2010, 03:58 AM
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I record Cartalk each week and use to do it on Radio Shack Concerttape t120's the cheap ones. They work fine and are still avilable. But a few years ago I switched to a computer based mp3 recorder and plug my radio headphone plug into the microphone plug on the computer sound card. http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/M..._Recorder.html its called 3D mp3 sound recorder. It looks just like a tape player, and you can adjust the audio quality all the way from very poor voice, up tp above CD quality. My 1 hour show takes up 19MB. 48KB bit rate. You can then play it back onto a tape recorder, make a few tapes at a time to use on your low-tech stuff, re-use the tapes you have every few weeks, and always have the mp3's on your computer. (keep backups) It will save you tons of cash.
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Old 04-04-2010, 03:47 PM
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AUdubon5425 AUdubon5425 is offline
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Avoid modern blank cassettes labeled "RCA." I bought a pack of these somewhere within the last five years and they were audibly inferior to anything else I had - sort of like the Tojaz and KMC cassettes years ago.

My old Maxell Golds, TDKs and Memorex tapes have held up well.
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