I think that putting together a one off machine with a phase locked
loop would be pretty straight forward - but rather then even worry
about that - I would just pull the data off and do a "virtual" tbc of
it in software. IF there is some sort of control track pulse it would
be very simple, correction of timing error in software would be
pretty straight forward to interpolate. In the article (and others)
there is this persistent discussion of them "fading away"... this it
unlikely - IF they can find the tapes - it is likely that they were
reasonably high coercivity so the RF carrier may be a bit weaker -
but probably still more then good enough to read - particularly
considering some of the head technology that exists these days.
Probably not a small project - - but this is a very "do-able"
one....... of course finding tapes is a pre-requisite. What surprises
me - is the general surprise that they were "lost" in the first
place. This is a recurring theme for decades now - and I fear it will
be repeated for many more....
Jim Lindner
Email: jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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On Jan 10, 2007, at 11:17 AM, Richard L. Hess wrote:
Wired Magazine has written about the lost Apollo 11 tapes -- again.
Still not found.
This is a good summary, though the last several paragraphs repeat
at the end.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/nasa.html
This would most likely be an Ampex instrumentation recorder.
It would take some work, and the timebase would be less stable, but
these tapes could probably be played on a cobbled-together system
using an audio recorder. The timebase stability of the Ampex
instrumentation recorders was better since the heads were right at
the capstan (which was grooved).
Cheers,
Richard
Richard L. Hess email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/
contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.