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Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc.

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Old 27th Sep 2013, 7:24 pm   #21
camtechman
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Default Re: Tapesponding

I have this unused "Senda-Message" postal tape in my collection.

It was made by Mastertape Ltd, Poyle Trading Estate, Colnbrook, Slough.

It contains a 1.75 inch spool of tape with a 5 x 3 inch postal envelope and states that the gross weight is only 1/2 ounce.

Printed on a paper disc within are the postal rates for May 1965:

Europe 6d,
Middle East 9d,
Canada, Central Africa, India, Hong Kong & USA 1s 3d
Australia, Japan, New Zealand & Pacific Ocean 1s 6d
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Old 27th Sep 2013, 7:51 pm   #22
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Whilst on the topic of "Tapesponding", on the BBC "One Show" yesterday was a piece about a recorded tape message that two young ladies sent to the Beatles in 1963, to which they hoped for a reply but no reply ever came.

The recorded message was done on a Scotch 3" Message Tape and was recently discovered by a man who bought a box of bits & bobs at a local flea market.

After listening to the message, the man decided to try & find the 'young ladies' and....yes, the One Show found the two 'girls', both now in their 60's and they were reunited with each other & the tape recording.

The icing on the cake was that the One Show contacted Paul McCartney and he sent a written reply to the ladies.
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Old 28th Sep 2013, 5:11 am   #23
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A heartwarming story indeed! Who said magnetic tape was dead? Sometimes it just takes a while to fulfill its purpose...
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Old 28th Sep 2013, 10:40 am   #24
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I was surprised to see the condition of the Nagra recorder used for playback of the tape. It needed a bit of a clean. However ,the item was very interesting for me as a Liverpuddlian and a fan of reel to reel. Never visited the cavern club though. It proves that tape is still playable even after all these years.. I did look at the ladies just in case they may have been ex girlfriends !!!!!!!! Peter W.......Reelguy.
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Old 29th Sep 2013, 10:20 pm   #25
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Nice to see this thread revived. There are still two tapesponding clubs alive and well to my knowledge. I belong to them both! One is the Chatterbox Recording Club (CRC) and the other is the National Tape Club (NTC). I am still tapesponding on a regular basis with about 13 people! In fact I recorded a tape to a good friend of mine only yesterday.

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Old 29th Sep 2013, 10:48 pm   #26
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Old 29th Sep 2013, 11:19 pm   #27
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This takes me back! I've never belonged to a formal tapesponding club, but a school chum and I both owned rim-drive tape recorders in the 1960s and we used to exchange 3" tapes on a regular basis. We used to try to outdo each other by recording messages in strange places and circumstances, in the bath, on the pillion of a motor scooter, and so on.

Coincidentally, I've just acquired from another Forum member a nice Sony portable stereo cassette recorder, just the thing for tapesponding! I might well take it up again.

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Old 30th Sep 2013, 12:21 am   #28
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I didn't realise it still went on, and this thread has made me all nostalgic. I used to tape-spond with my old schoolmate Pete, who moved to South Benfleet in the mid 70s when he got a job at Marconi. We always included old bits and pieces we'd recorded years before, incuding old clips of Kenny Everett radio shows and the Goons. We changed to cassettes in about 1980 before giving up in favour of email in the 90s.
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Old 30th Sep 2013, 1:17 am   #29
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I didn't realise it still went on,
It certainly does Andrew. Members of the CRC are still tapesponding using reel to reel, cassette and minidisc.

Dave.
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Old 30th Sep 2013, 5:31 am   #30
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My family used to tapespond with my grandparents and cousins once every year at Christmas at the end of the 60's/beginnning of the 70's. At one point when visiting my relatives I collected the tapes that we'd sent 'across the pond', so I now have more or less the complete record from both sides. Priceless these days as there are recordings of voices now long gone, both in terms of people passing away and people being children at the time, myself included.
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Old 30th Sep 2013, 4:56 pm   #31
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That is a wonderful story ricard. To me, a set of recordings like you describe are worth more than all the family photograph albums put together. To have the sound of the voices....

Brilliant!

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Old 30th Sep 2013, 11:31 pm   #32
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There's some great information, including recordings, of both tape recording clubs and tapesponding on this website - http://www.meagreresource.com/archive/tape.html
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 5:35 am   #33
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To have the sound of the voices...
Yes, something like "A picture says more than a thousand words, but a sound says more than a thousand pictures".

I also have some telephone recordings with my grandparents that I made when I was young, then mostly because the whole telephone recording setup was fun. I never considered at the time that the real importance was the fact that those recordings could only be made then and not now.

Getting off topic here, but telephone recordings remind me of a set of tapes I once bought together with a Uher recorder and a Uher 'Akustomat', which is a voice (or rather sound) activated attachement which starts the recorder when the sound level is loud enough. The tapes contain hours and hours of recorded telephone conversations, apparently in conjunction with some divorce settlement, although being automatically recorded, much of the recorded material has nothing to do with the case, but are ordinary family telephone conversations. I have no idea who is on the tape, but it is fascinating to listen to.

Back to tapesponding: I wonder if it was more popular in the reel to reel era or in the cassette era? I would think a lot of the popularity would have to do with the cost and easiness of making long distance telephone calls. At the end of the 1960's, I remember that to make a transatlantic phone call from Sweden to Canada you had to place a request with the telephone operator, who would call back when there was an available time slot. During the 70s I remember it becoming fully automatic, though probably quite expensive still. Today I'm in the weird situation that it is actually cheaper for whatever reason to phone my sister in France than to phone my next door neighbor! Not to mention free Internet services such as Skype. So the incentive to tapespond today would be driven not so much by a wish to communicate, but by the format itself,
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 11:09 am   #34
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In the early 1970's I used to send monthly C120 cassettes to a friend who was working in oil exploration in the Niger delta. They mostly contained recordings of Alan Freeman's Sunday "Top of the Pops" programmes recorded in high quality from FM plus a few minutes of message on the end to qualify for the message tape postal rate. He (and his colleagues) were apparently highly appreciative as they had no other way of keeping up with the latest music.
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 8:23 pm   #35
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Quote:
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Back to tapesponding: I wonder if it was more popular in the reel to reel era or in the cassette era?
The reel to reel era and the cassette era actually overlapped each other so it is difficult to answer your question. I would say when tapesponding was at its peak (probably 1960's and 70's) most users were exchanging 3 inch reel to reel tapes. However, nowadays hardly anyone in the clubs uses reel to reel. Just the odd dedicated few. Most are recording to cassette or minidisc. Having said that, the membership of the tapesponding clubs has dwindled to very low levels now. Not surprising of course. The home computer and the internet changed everything.

Dave.
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Old 2nd Oct 2013, 12:44 pm   #36
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My father lives about 150 miles away from us, has poor eyesight and doesn't like using the phone because of a hearing problem so we've sent him audio messages instead. We started off with cassettes but made the switch to CD when his talking books switched away from cassettes and his cassette player became unreiliable.

I'm sure I'll treasure the messages from him when he is no longer with us.
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Old 2nd Oct 2013, 4:53 pm   #37
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Hi james,

I forgot there used to be (and still is) an amount of non-club related tapesponding between family members and friends. It's difficult to know just how much of this went on in the past and possibly still continues to this day. The hobby is certainly still alive and it just won't die! There are some members of the CRC who own standalone CD recorders and therefore have the capability to tapespond using CDRW discs. I'm not sure if much of it goes on. Most members are dedicated to cassette.

My father and his brother used to tapespond with each other due to living in different parts of the UK. I kept copies of some of my uncle's tapes and backed them up to CDR. Sadly my uncle died so his voice recordings are priceless to me.

Dave.
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Old 20th Nov 2013, 2:35 am   #38
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WOW! This is the first time I have heard of this idea ! I do recall buying secondhand scotch 3" tapes in the 80's 90's with an address box on the back and I always assumed that was to send a BLANK new tape to a customer.
I do think this is a great idea , much more interesting than Skype or "instant messenger" type services. I really hope there can be a revival of this interest.
Maybe a "phone book " kind of register or directory of willing participants could be made?
Good Luck to everyone that can partake ! MARVELOUS !
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Old 20th Nov 2013, 10:52 am   #39
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Oh yes. Receiving a tape from a friend has far more value (IMO) than just clicking on an e-mail or picking up the phone. It's rather like receiving a hand-written letter, and the wait is part of the process.
My cassette deck is now belt-less. I might do it up and send a cassette to my mate Pete, that'd surprise him!
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Old 20th Nov 2013, 3:09 pm   #40
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Hi,
As a kid I had a very simple rim drive tape recorder and our neighbour gave me a couple of 3" message tapes to use on it for my birthday. They were on Emitape reels which were made from light blue plastic instead of clear.
Cheers, Pete.
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