Thanks for your ideas. The gentleman who sold the deck to me was a taskmaster - he basically said that he wouldn't sell me the deck if I wouldn't promise him I'd clean it after every use. I did promise, and I do clean it each time. His name was Jack Clark, and his place was JM Technical Arts.
I only use prerecorded tapes, as the machine was modified to work with 15ips 2 track tapes as well as 4 track 7.5ips tapes, and the recording head was removed to accomplish that.
I like the experiment of forwarding it through, and then trying it again on Side l. I am thinking of buying the (somewhat expensive) test tapes that allow a technician to adjust the heads. My local bench guys say they can't adjust the heads because they don't have the proper test tones anymore. I figure i'll buy them, and they'll be no more excuses.
It seems to me that the equivalent of azimuth could be at play here. Good suggestion.
David
