[78-L] question on tape baking

[Graham Newton]

joe salerno
joe at salerno.com wrote:

> Here's one especially aimed at the tape experts on the list.
> 
> If tapes are baked in a food dehydrator, as has been suggested on this 
> list for those on a small budget, would there be a danger of tape 
> erasure, at least of high freq loss, caused by proximity to the heating 
> element running 60 cycle?

The simple answer is no.

There are two things to deal with... the air circulating fan motor and the 
heating element.  With the motor, the more contained the fields are, the more 
efficient the motor is, and designers have been doing this for many years.
The elements in the dehydrators are coiled like a spring or have metal jackets 
and any magnetic field is thus contained.  Any field that is not contained is 
likely much lower than the field produced by "skimming" as done by some 
professional tape recorders to reduce print-through on already recorded tapes, 
and that is said not to affect the recordings on the tapes subjected to it.

Bring a compass close to the inside bottom of a dehydrator (where the motor and 
elements are) and turn it on.  You will see very little movement of the compass 
needle... and I don't think you need much more proof than that!



... Graham Newton

-- 
Audio Restoration by Graham Newton, http://www.audio-restoration.com
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