Rod, here's a PDF of the Ampex strobe stickers:
http://recordist.com/ampex/schematics/300man/300strobe.pdf
60hz, I think 15IPS.
Question for the group -- what if one scanned the strobe pattern on that Irish wheel and affixed it
to a take-up reel? Would that be anywhere near useful as far as tape-speed accuracy measurement?
Rod, one other thing. The flipside of a quarter-track duped tape should not have pitch differences
from the front side. Those tracks were duped at the same time and the tape is from the same point in
the duper reel, so you don't have front-to-back issues like you get with splicing together segments
of different 15IPS tapes made on an Ampex 300 transport. So if there's a pitch problem, it's likely
in the duper master made by the duplicator. Sloppy QC.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roderic G Stephens" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Shrunk strobe?
Anybody have one for sale? (Strobe wheel, etc.)
Rod Stephens
--- On Wed, 3/30/11, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Shrunk strobe?
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 3:21 PM
Hey, I have one of those Irish strobes, too. Forgot to mention that. It doesn't work very well. The
Dubbings disc is much better and precision-feeling. I don't think any of these things are
instrumentation-precise but they are precise enough to get you in the ballpark with real-world audio
tape recordings.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Biel" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Shrunk strobe?
> On 3/30/2011 5:41 PM, Roderic G Stephens wrote:
>> I know that Tom Fine mentioned that he had an old strobe for checking tape speed. Does anyone
>> know of any that are available?
>
> In the 50s OrrRadio made an Irish strobe disc on a handle which you could lightly press onto the
> outside wrap of the tape on the reel as it moved. Worked fairly well if you didn't press hard
> enough to slow things down. Robbins (I think) made a strobe tape but it was bumpy as it ran thru
> the machine.
>> I think I remember Ampex decks in Hollywood that had a small circular strobe that fit on the top
>> of the capstan, but they were of bigger diameter than my Teac 2340R.
>
> That would make a very small strobe even on the larger capstans of the 30 IPS versions of the 200
> and 300! What I remember is a strobe that Land/Pultec had for the flywheel stabilizers of the 350.
> We had them on some of the machines at a studio I worked for in the 60s, but they were useless
> because some of the stabilizers were so used that a groove had been worn into the shaft by the
> tape. (These machines were used for editing with much shuttling.)
>
> Mike Biel [log in to unmask]
>
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