hey, helpful folk,

my most prized boombox has developed a bit of a problem. last night i tried to record a tape from the line in jack on the box, and now it has a severe buzz whenever the box is playing in tape mode. whatever the signal is, it's filling the visual meter. i read a few older topics on this type of problem, but none were the exact same as mine... when i touch the head, there is no difference in sound. when i have the radio set to anything else, there is no buzz. like i said, this box played tapes fine up until i tried to record a tape...

a few more probably important details: panasonic 5100. i just opened it up to look for loose grounds, etc, didn't see anyhting immediately. put a blank tape in the drive, pressed record, then put it in play and the buzzing sound didn't immediately start up, but then it slowly faded in. it sounded lower than previously. i held down the stop button and repeatedly pressed the record button, then pressed play. the buzz is taking longer and longer to come on, and it's becoming more and more faint. i'm hoping is that it's closer to the record function being sticky/faulty than a blown capacitor?

nevermind, problem (hopefully permenantly) solved. i continued to hold stop, then recorded on a blank tape on and off over and over and over. i guess it may have been that record hadnt been used in....well, since well before i bought this box, and it was just sticky. i didn't see this suggestion in any of the prevous discussions related to this topic, so i am going to leave this discussion up in case anyone else has a similar problem.

That's persistence!

Glad it worked for you fatboyrafe.

i've been recording to tape this afternoon and it still occasionally is buzzing when i go back to playing the tapes...anyone have a tip for what i could clean to eliminate it?

Looks like the record bar need cleaning ....
A quite common issue across BBX ....
You can use some contact cleaner ... I would recomend one with Lubricant. I'd always fixed that issue without effort, like static noise in source selector, sliders and so on.
One of my Panasonic (my 5120) hasn't its record bar cleaned yet ... So this noise appears from time to time, more after a long non-use period. Keep presing and releasing record and the problem gone, but still need a cleaning.

I think the cause is:

Record bars aren't sealed.
This switch is used a little number of times betwen long times of non-use, so dirt and corrosion may occur. A source selector is used daily, so it keeps cleaned.

Pedro

thanks again success...you're the bomb.