• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Video tape problems

cedwards

EF5
Joined
Feb 3, 2005
Messages
556
Location
Shawnee, OK
I have a Sony FX-1 and it has worked great for many years.
This year, I got an error message a couple of crucial times that I should put in a cleaning cassette. I didn't have one handy at the time, so took the tape out, blew into the compartment and re-inserted the tape. I continued to record with no problem....

That is until I got home and found out that all my tapes are completely blank!!!!! The tapes advanced in the camcorder, but nothing recorded. there isn't even timecode or anything. It is as if it is a new tape from the store. I have tried playing them through the camcorder and through a record deck I have.

Has anybody had a problem like this? Is it possible to somehow recover the tape (If anything even recorded)?
 
I had this happen once with my FX1. Try rewinding the tape all the way back to the start then playing it from the beginning. I don't know what happened or what caused the problem, but that fixed it when it happened to me.
 
I can't trust the camera anymore. Luckily, I bought a smaller camera for this year that recorded on flash memory. It has such good quality image and ease of use that I used it 90% of the time over the FX-1.
Still the moment I miss the most was east of Stockton, KS on June 1. We were next to a wall cloud with upward motion faster than any I have ever seen even in tornadoes.
 
It's a tension issue. An arm in the tape path is adjusted accordingly
when the camcorder is in the play or record mode which snugs the tape
up close to the rotating drum. When in pause, tension is backed off and the
tape slacks along the head drum so as not to let the head maintain contact
with the tape while it is not moving.

At this point your best bet is to use it as a backup. When transports reach this
point, there's no reliable way to repair them...
 
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