energyandair
Active Member
Tape recorders are not my thing but I thought that this Honeywell-101 data recorder looked interesting. I have no idea if can be used or adapted for music.
Interesting Tape Recorder but does it play music?
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never, ever, seen one of those before......wow! ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY IPS! Serious hifi there 
dshoaf
That high voltage buzz
It _might_ do digital music via PCM but your bigger problem will be the cost of electricity and space to store it. Its gonna get loud if the transport uses vacuum instead of pinch rollers.
Oh, and forget about driver support on Vista.......its getting old enough to vote.
Cheers,
David
Oh, and forget about driver support on Vista.......its getting old enough to vote.
Cheers,
David
sleddogman
Super Member
You could start your own pre-recorded FM or cable music station or buy it and donate it to your local police or fire department to archive 911 calls.
Oh... and good luck finding parts...
Oh... and good luck finding parts...
Jon Chandler
New Member
The Honeywell 101 is a sweet recorder! The 14 track/1 inch tape version was about $30,000 out the door in around 1985.
The model number is actually just about the weight of the 14 track version. The 1/2" 7 track version probably weighs almost as much as the transport is the same. Threading the concentric reels can be an exercise in frustration, especially in the middle of the night after a long day of testing.
The unit for sale includes "direct" cards, the common amplitude modulation you're all familiar with. The specs with direct cards are going to be similar to the specs on any of the high-end recorders. At 60 IPS, the frequency response will be a few HUNDRED kilohertz. The other option for cards is FM (yep, frequency modulation). This is common in instrumentation recorders. Using FM, DC levels can be recorded, but the frequency response is only 10 kHz at 15 IPS (Wideband, group II).
These recorders run very quietly and don't draw much power...probably not much more than your PC and monitor.
Jon
The model number is actually just about the weight of the 14 track version. The 1/2" 7 track version probably weighs almost as much as the transport is the same. Threading the concentric reels can be an exercise in frustration, especially in the middle of the night after a long day of testing.
The unit for sale includes "direct" cards, the common amplitude modulation you're all familiar with. The specs with direct cards are going to be similar to the specs on any of the high-end recorders. At 60 IPS, the frequency response will be a few HUNDRED kilohertz. The other option for cards is FM (yep, frequency modulation). This is common in instrumentation recorders. Using FM, DC levels can be recorded, but the frequency response is only 10 kHz at 15 IPS (Wideband, group II).
These recorders run very quietly and don't draw much power...probably not much more than your PC and monitor.
Jon
HW 101 is in another league!
I used instrumentation recorders in a previous life as an acoustic engineer and let me tell, you would be impressed with the possible fidelity of the things. The HW 101 was one of the nicest, though as Jon says, loading the tape takes some patience. If you are into accurate sound reproduction, I believe this thing would blow you away.
As Jon says, in direct mode the bandwidth is much wider than FM, but in FM mode, the time coherence, transient response and distortion are much better than any audio tape recorder I'm familiar with. And I have lived with Studer, Otari and more. In the aerospace world, we recorded scale model acoustic data up to 80kHz which requires 120ips in FM, but for correlation analysis and acoustic intensity measurement, you need the accuracy of FM mode. I never tried music on it, but always thought it would good. When you've seen the input vs output waveforms of FM vs direct, there is no comparison. I seem to recall that the s/n ratio in FM is not steller, but the accuracy is impressive.
Now at this price, does the thing actually work? And getting it repaired could be tough. But I would jump at the opportunity if I lived nearby (location listed as Victoria).
Jeff
I used instrumentation recorders in a previous life as an acoustic engineer and let me tell, you would be impressed with the possible fidelity of the things. The HW 101 was one of the nicest, though as Jon says, loading the tape takes some patience. If you are into accurate sound reproduction, I believe this thing would blow you away.
As Jon says, in direct mode the bandwidth is much wider than FM, but in FM mode, the time coherence, transient response and distortion are much better than any audio tape recorder I'm familiar with. And I have lived with Studer, Otari and more. In the aerospace world, we recorded scale model acoustic data up to 80kHz which requires 120ips in FM, but for correlation analysis and acoustic intensity measurement, you need the accuracy of FM mode. I never tried music on it, but always thought it would good. When you've seen the input vs output waveforms of FM vs direct, there is no comparison. I seem to recall that the s/n ratio in FM is not steller, but the accuracy is impressive.
Now at this price, does the thing actually work? And getting it repaired could be tough. But I would jump at the opportunity if I lived nearby (location listed as Victoria).
Jeff
Jon Chandler
New Member
There were several things we used the Honeywell 101s for. The main use was for recording sonar data to evaluate submarine noise signatures. Can't say much more than that.
The other major use was for recording vibration data from accelerometers. Seven track recorders using half-inch tape were routinely used for shipboard machinery condition/health measurements. Data would be recorded on a few hundred machines while underway for several days, and analyzed back in the office to evaluate the need to overhaul machinery. The technorlogy is a well-proven money saver. For industrial applications, predictive maintenance (which is not preventive maintenance) can save as much as 11 TIMES what it costs to run such a program. Healthy machines aren't needlessly overhauled, and machines with small problems can be repaired before too much wear and/or failure occurs. These days, this type of measurement is done using hand-held digital analyzers.
Massive data acquisition efforts these days mostly digitize and store data on hard drives. I'm a firm believer in analog technology, having more than once filled a fard drive just as the event I wanted to capture was about to occur. A reel of 1" tape turning at high speed holds the equivalent of an awful lot of bits of data, and a fresh reel can be readied pretty quickly if needed.
Jon
The other major use was for recording vibration data from accelerometers. Seven track recorders using half-inch tape were routinely used for shipboard machinery condition/health measurements. Data would be recorded on a few hundred machines while underway for several days, and analyzed back in the office to evaluate the need to overhaul machinery. The technorlogy is a well-proven money saver. For industrial applications, predictive maintenance (which is not preventive maintenance) can save as much as 11 TIMES what it costs to run such a program. Healthy machines aren't needlessly overhauled, and machines with small problems can be repaired before too much wear and/or failure occurs. These days, this type of measurement is done using hand-held digital analyzers.
Massive data acquisition efforts these days mostly digitize and store data on hard drives. I'm a firm believer in analog technology, having more than once filled a fard drive just as the event I wanted to capture was about to occur. A reel of 1" tape turning at high speed holds the equivalent of an awful lot of bits of data, and a fresh reel can be readied pretty quickly if needed.
Jon
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