So, I've gotten ahold of a new piece of hardware, an ITC 3D triple deck cart player. This is a stereo model, with the three tone cards. Playback only, what I thought might be record heads in the pictures I'd seen are dummy heads. But that's fine - I recently managed to get my other AudiCord cart machine recording reasonably well, once I get the parts to fix the cuing track record circuit, I should have no problems recording to carts, with tones.
Now, first - general question about the ITC 3D. This machine is absolutely *beautiful*. A truly amazing, quality piece of equipment with a lot of attention given to ease of service. This is simply a joy to work on. I was worried that getting at the bottom two decks would be a problem - but it's not. Two screws, the thick heavy faceplate flips down and I can slide out the mechanisms to work on them. Amazing. This machine I have was sold to me as "probably broken, sitting in storage a long time, no way to test". I have so far only really worked on the top deck, and got it going with minimal effort. The grease in the pinch roller spindle had turned in to gunk, so a good cleaning, little fresh grease, clean the pinch roller, capstan and heads, and it plays perfectly. One question about this design though - when the pinch roller is sitting in it's retracted position, it rests on a metal plate. This, coupled with years of storage, has left a flat spot on the edge of all three pinch rollers. It protrudes slightly into the path where it actually touches the tape, but does not seem to really affect playback, although I'm sure once I use the other deck and record some test tones onto a cart, I might be able to hear it.
I'll see what I can do to mitigate this, or perhaps source new rollers - but the question remains - is it supposed to do this? With how much care and precision went into constructing this machine, it seems odd to me that they would have the pinch roller intentionally resting on a surface with enough force to deform and damage it over time. Now, of course, I doubt this would be a problem if the deck were used regularly, but - is this supposed to be this way? Or is the solenoid allowing the arm to pivot too far down? Years of use worn the tolerances to the point where the roller hits this plate? I have skimmed through the manual and don't see mention of an adjustment for this, so it's possible. Just curious if anyone had run into this, or if this was a concern back when these machines were in regular use.
Another question, with regards to cuing tones. I know the primary cuing tone is used for the start/end of the program. The AudiCord and the ITC decks both respect this and stop the cart when they see it. The secondary and tertiary tones though - how are those conventionally used? Was there a standard? I've got only a couple handfuls of carts here, but some have a secondary tone at the end of program audio - the AudiCord will see this, light up the secondary tone light, and stop the tape counter, but continue running the tape forward until it hits the primary cuing tone, then it stops. The ITC seems to ignore it - but I'm sure it decodes it and makes the signal available at the remote socket on the back, I just haven't started playing with that yet.
At risk of creating a really long thread here - I'm genuinely really interested in how broadcast automation was done with tape. It was my understanding that the secondary cuing tone would be used at the end of the audio on the cart, to be able to tell the next cart machine to play - so you could plug in, say, three carts with songs, and they'd play in sequence. But the couple carts I have here from radio stations that have music on them - they're stereo, but no secondary tones at all. So would someone manually have to start the next song when the first one ended, or was there other hardware to listen for silence and sequence things that way? A couple carts here have that secondary tone at the end of the audio. A couple others, have multiple versions of similar commercials on one cart, but just a bunch of primary cuing tones to stop the tape after each one is played. I'm sure all these conventions varied from station to station, but what was popular? Where was this processing done? The cart deck just provides the signals, I'm sure the console would have settings, controls, some sequencing or way of manipulating the sequencing?
Also, the carts themselves... I have a couple different types here, red Fidelipacs, blue Audiopaks, and black ScotchCart II's. The ScotchCart design is really fascinating, I'm amazed that system works and doesn't just jam from the friction of pulling the tape past itself like that. But what I have noticed is that the ScotchCarts shed oxide real bad. I have one 70 second cart that totally clogged the heads with oxide after one play. Another that has left black flakes all inside the cart shell. None of the other tapes have done this, only the ScotchCarts. Anyone else run into this problem? I have experimented with winding the lubricated tape from an eight track cartridge into a Fidelipac I got with ruined, moldy tape in it, and that seems to work just fine... going to have to come up with something to hold that ScotchCart hub and spin it so I can re-wind and salvage those. 8 track tapes are common, carts are a lot harder to get!
Apologies for the long post, just really curious how this sort of equipment was used. I intend to build something to let me sequence play the carts in the ITC 3D. The easiest thing I can come up with is to simply connect the secondary tone output from one deck to the start switch of the next... but that only would work with tapes with that secondary tone on them. The only carts I have with music lack that tone. Where these just not automated?
Any information would be appreciated. Thanks!
-Ian
Now, first - general question about the ITC 3D. This machine is absolutely *beautiful*. A truly amazing, quality piece of equipment with a lot of attention given to ease of service. This is simply a joy to work on. I was worried that getting at the bottom two decks would be a problem - but it's not. Two screws, the thick heavy faceplate flips down and I can slide out the mechanisms to work on them. Amazing. This machine I have was sold to me as "probably broken, sitting in storage a long time, no way to test". I have so far only really worked on the top deck, and got it going with minimal effort. The grease in the pinch roller spindle had turned in to gunk, so a good cleaning, little fresh grease, clean the pinch roller, capstan and heads, and it plays perfectly. One question about this design though - when the pinch roller is sitting in it's retracted position, it rests on a metal plate. This, coupled with years of storage, has left a flat spot on the edge of all three pinch rollers. It protrudes slightly into the path where it actually touches the tape, but does not seem to really affect playback, although I'm sure once I use the other deck and record some test tones onto a cart, I might be able to hear it.
I'll see what I can do to mitigate this, or perhaps source new rollers - but the question remains - is it supposed to do this? With how much care and precision went into constructing this machine, it seems odd to me that they would have the pinch roller intentionally resting on a surface with enough force to deform and damage it over time. Now, of course, I doubt this would be a problem if the deck were used regularly, but - is this supposed to be this way? Or is the solenoid allowing the arm to pivot too far down? Years of use worn the tolerances to the point where the roller hits this plate? I have skimmed through the manual and don't see mention of an adjustment for this, so it's possible. Just curious if anyone had run into this, or if this was a concern back when these machines were in regular use.
Another question, with regards to cuing tones. I know the primary cuing tone is used for the start/end of the program. The AudiCord and the ITC decks both respect this and stop the cart when they see it. The secondary and tertiary tones though - how are those conventionally used? Was there a standard? I've got only a couple handfuls of carts here, but some have a secondary tone at the end of program audio - the AudiCord will see this, light up the secondary tone light, and stop the tape counter, but continue running the tape forward until it hits the primary cuing tone, then it stops. The ITC seems to ignore it - but I'm sure it decodes it and makes the signal available at the remote socket on the back, I just haven't started playing with that yet.
At risk of creating a really long thread here - I'm genuinely really interested in how broadcast automation was done with tape. It was my understanding that the secondary cuing tone would be used at the end of the audio on the cart, to be able to tell the next cart machine to play - so you could plug in, say, three carts with songs, and they'd play in sequence. But the couple carts I have here from radio stations that have music on them - they're stereo, but no secondary tones at all. So would someone manually have to start the next song when the first one ended, or was there other hardware to listen for silence and sequence things that way? A couple carts here have that secondary tone at the end of the audio. A couple others, have multiple versions of similar commercials on one cart, but just a bunch of primary cuing tones to stop the tape after each one is played. I'm sure all these conventions varied from station to station, but what was popular? Where was this processing done? The cart deck just provides the signals, I'm sure the console would have settings, controls, some sequencing or way of manipulating the sequencing?
Also, the carts themselves... I have a couple different types here, red Fidelipacs, blue Audiopaks, and black ScotchCart II's. The ScotchCart design is really fascinating, I'm amazed that system works and doesn't just jam from the friction of pulling the tape past itself like that. But what I have noticed is that the ScotchCarts shed oxide real bad. I have one 70 second cart that totally clogged the heads with oxide after one play. Another that has left black flakes all inside the cart shell. None of the other tapes have done this, only the ScotchCarts. Anyone else run into this problem? I have experimented with winding the lubricated tape from an eight track cartridge into a Fidelipac I got with ruined, moldy tape in it, and that seems to work just fine... going to have to come up with something to hold that ScotchCart hub and spin it so I can re-wind and salvage those. 8 track tapes are common, carts are a lot harder to get!
Apologies for the long post, just really curious how this sort of equipment was used. I intend to build something to let me sequence play the carts in the ITC 3D. The easiest thing I can come up with is to simply connect the secondary tone output from one deck to the start switch of the next... but that only would work with tapes with that secondary tone on them. The only carts I have with music lack that tone. Where these just not automated?
Any information would be appreciated. Thanks!
-Ian
