|
Hi,
I bought the service manual for this Panasonic NV-3120 from Labguy, Rich Diehl last week. I had to reach him via email. As soon as I looked at the schematic I discovered there was a tension switch in series with the motor switches. A tape has to be installed, in order for the VTR motor to spin. I cleaned up the video head a little and demaged the audio head. I tested some of the old tapes and found that only some would pass over the video head without sticking / binding. The Scotch and Maxell brand R2R videotape slide over the head trouble free.
The Sony and Memorex brand tapes get stuck. It's like they are maganetized.
They even start to stretch. The tape that does work, seems to be made of a different base stock, similar to standard R2R audio tape.
Has anyone ever had or used a VTR like this? Were these early VTR's brand specific when it came to blank R2R videotape? This Panasonic is helical scan.
The audio has some intermittent hum and feedback. The video has color and sync issues I have yet to work on. Many of the image quality issues seem to be related to age of videotape. The newer the recording the better the quality.
Pictures below are some of the first tapes I viewed. This VTR has a channel 5 or 6 RF modulator. I get a better signal on channel 5.
My son and I tried recording and got about the same quality image as the old recordings. We used an old tape to record over.
ED
|