Chris Trottier on Nostr: I have, in my hands, unopened Bel Cleer reel-to-reel tape—made in the 1960s but ...

I have, in my hands, unopened Bel Cleer reel-to-reel tape—made in the 1960s but never opened.

And I’m using this to learn how to record on my Panasonic RS-761S machine.

Which turns out to be convoluted. I have to manually press two channel buttons, which will not activate unless I bring the notch to the “Pause” button.

Then and only then will the deck recognize audio is coming into the unit. At which point, I can set my levels.

But my Panasonic doesn’t have a “Record” button. So how do I do it? By moving the notch to “Play” which results in recording.

And to stop recording, I move the notch to “Stop”—not “Pause”—which loosens the two channel buttons.