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From: dollas@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm
Subject: Re: Commodore cassette problems - (nf)
Message-ID: <5973@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Mar-84 22:33:15 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.5973
Posted: Thu Mar  1 22:33:15 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Mar-84 08:44:50 EST
Lines: 27

#R:ittral:-37300:uiuccsb:16800009:000:1495
uiuccsb!dollas    Mar  1 11:50:00 1984

   One of the most significant factors is the interference from the TV/monitor
screen. Try to keep your datasette far from it (you can even put a metal
pan over it to see if this is indeed the problem -so much about technology); if
so just make longer cables and ...reach out!
   If you use a homebrew interface (I use one all the time) it might be 
sensitive to tone and volume levels. Usually once you've got the proper 
settings it works fine. In fact with my roomate's SANYO (no, I don't work
for them) and TDK SA cassettes  (Chromium setting - I don't work for TDK either)
we get virtually no loading errors even when the recorder is 1ft off 
of the TV!
   The azimuth may be a reason for problems but I would think that it would
give problems with both FSK (Sinclair) and PCM (Commodore) coding schemes. On
the other hand noise tolerance may be different, by adding noise with 
frequency components far beyond the ranges it looks for in FSK you may still
get good results whereas in PCM it might interpret this noise as transitions
thus goofing up.
   As a final comment you may get better results if you use magnetic 'donuts'
at the ends of each wire (that connects the interface to your datasette).

   Good Luck
                                                 Apostolos Dollas
                                                Dept. of Comp. Sci.
                                                     U. of Ill. 
                                         ...!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!dollas