I found the 8 track tape from 1958 or at least recorded from a 1958 archive of radio station, WIL in St. Louis. The disc jockey was Jack Carney.

On the tape there's a picture of a gas station with gas at $0.19 reg and ethyl at $0.22 now this is a cartoon drawing, on top is "CRUISIN 1958"
Now the cool part is a commercial advertising brand new Mercury cars. theres also a Gillette and a old spice commercial.
It's pretty cool listening to these tapes. But now you can see why I want to preserve these on disc.
Staying low for now
Robert

 

I still use my home Pioneer 8 track deck fairly often. Some people act as if this is something crazy. I dont get it. To me it is crazy to replace your whole music library every time the movers and shakers decide its time to make your media obsolete so you will HAVE to run out and get the latest "in" thing. Also as a classic rock lover I think it would be crazy not to want to take advantage of all the fifty cent tapes a million out at the flea markets and thrift stores.

Yeah the 8 track was far from perfect. I like the fact that many of them can be easily popped apart and repaired if needed. If you place a piece of scotch tape where the factory placed a piece of aluminum foil to complete the track changing circuit then the tape will last virtually forever. What usually happens now is you put a tape in and it plays fine until the track change when you hear nothing. You pull the tape out and there sometimes is no tape because it separated and fell into the case or worse yet the tape may wind around the capstan inside the deck and may ruin if the process is not put into reverse very carefully. Most people give a good yank and thats the end of that tape. The deck wrongly gets the blame in this last case.

As far as decks go one must clean what is usually by now a very dirty head and run an exacto blade up and down the running capstan. You can make it run by pushing in the spring loaded switch on the side of the tape area. Last but very important check tapes and decks for TAR, yes TAR! A certain tape factory made the rubber running wheel out of some material that with age turns into TAR that is a big mess if you get it in your deck.

Ooops! Almost forgot you can get a sound as good as any other tape format by having a good foam cushion under the tape. Anyone dealing with these will notice that many of them have collapsed foam.

Yeah theres not much to do out here in the sticks!!!

Keep on Trackin.....