To antiskate or not antiskate

1. Use blank side of LP, raise arm, get platter spinning 33 rpm.
2. Lower arm, it gets pulled into the center, that is natural skating force
3. add a little anti-skating force, lower arm, a bit more. Check it at various distances from the outer and inner grooves. Find a compromise, if any allow a speck of inner skate, avoid outer skate.

Sorry, but this does not work very well, if at all. By ear yes, but it helps to know you're in the ballpark to start with.

Exactly, get in the ballpark visually, (ignore the dial) then refine by ear, using what LP______?

AFTER: everything else is verified, anti-skate is last

AFTER: Your system’s balance is proven by the CD version of whatever content you are using.

Then use the LP version of known content and known imaging

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Just last night, listening to a friends system, track 3 ... the left channel disappeared. Nobody walking around, nobody touched anything.

WTF

Turned out to be a loose RCA connector on the back of the Phono stage.

That’s why I changed to all LOCKING connectors, either Locking XLR (they all do not lock); or cables with Locking RCA connectors, or modify your existing cables with these connectors from parts express

https://www.parts-express.com/Locking-RCA-Plug-Solder-Type-2-Pair-091-1270?quantity=1

The channel disappeared completely, easy to be aware off, find and fix, but many times you can get a partial signal, unaware your balance might be off

Here I run everything balanced,  I even make my own cables because they are better than anything else that I've tried. 

It's been a while since I've used the blank record trick but it might direkt me in the right direction ,or I might just wait for the right tools 😁

I used to own a VPI JRM (?) Memorial tone arm. If you wanted skate control you could give a twist the wires going into the tone arm in the correct direction and it would provide a small outward force on the tone arm. It tried with and without and found a twist was better. 

I appreciate this approach and thought it captured the importance of anti-skate. It was worth throwing a bit of force into it... but didn’t need to be incredibly accurately dialed in. I know, this would rub a bunch of folks the wrong way. I enjoyed it. The table really sounded amazing, so never felt like anti-skate was THE big parameter to worry about.

My tone arm today has fine calibrations. But then it cost three or four times more. 

I have an old SME 3009 tonearm, which has inbuilt anti-skating via a small weight dangling on a line which passes over a very small pulley.  The other end of the line loops over a graduated rod to apply side pressure to the arm.

SME made almost 100,000 of these arms.  With mine, it is very noticeable if the thread falls off the pulley.  

My latest turntable, a Holbo, has a tangential tracking arm riding on an air-bearing so there is no need for any anti-skating.  Also, the horizontal tracking angle never varies, whereas most pivoted arms have up to 2-degrees error purely from the geometry.as the stylus moves in an arc across the record.

I believe that for two-channel records, horizontal and vertical tracking angles are equally important because each channel, which is 45-degrees to the record surface, is equally affected by horizontal and vertical errors.