Tascam 244 Project

bachelorb

Cowboy Chord Virtuoso
Well, the ol Covid-19 has chased me into the house. My wife is on immuno-suppresents, so we are not going anywhere.....and I have a couple of projects in the room I would like to get to.

1. A Tascam 244 Portastudio and a
2. Tascam 134 Syncaset

First one up? the 244.

Backstory- Back when my wife and I were traveling around the country. I got a little crazy on eBay and bought a couple of 244's. I was going for the take two and make one theme. I fixed up the ratty looking one without having to take any components off the good looking one. I sold the ratty looking one and was about to set to the task of fixing the nice looking one up when a fella on here who calls himself RFR introduced me to the concept of portable rack mount systems.... mind and budget blown........ :D
The 244 got shelved.....and still would be except.

We had to get off the road when my wife fell ill.... dialysis, a new house, and a new kidney later, she is ready to go again. Since we bought the house, I had room for more stuff....big stuff... (including my Tascam 312 board). Now I'm thinking about downsizing again. The 244 would be about right, plus I could keep some of my other fun stuff (reverb, compressor, etc) <end of backstory>

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I'm going to document all this to hopefully help some people in the future, and to ask for help along the way.

So today I started to look at the 244. These are the problems that I can find right now.

1. BUSS L/TRK 1 Meter doesn't work
2. Through the headphones, I hear a hum that goes away when I touch the back panel. I hooked monitors to the line out and do not have the hum problem.
3. Nothing is recording to the tape player (this may be me though, its been probably 4 years since I fiddled with a 244 and so far I've only been flippin switches). I'm going to read the manual this afternoon.
4. Noisy Tape Deck

.....soooooooo..... here we go.........
 
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More troubleshooting today with a test signal. Right now, I'm going to concentrate on these problems


1. BUSS L/TRK 1 Meter doesn't work

Hard thumping will get the meter to jump. Thumping the other meters, they don't jump at all. Looking at the meter 1 compared to the others, there is noticeable meter droop. I think that one is going to have to be replaced.
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I've changed out these meters before on my 312 and it was tight and as I remember. I can imagine this small 244 will be twice as much fun. :)

2. Through the headphones, I hear a hum that goes away when I touch the back panel. I hooked monitors to the line out and do not have the hum problem.

uh oh...... this problem has gone away.... This is going to be one of THOSE problems.

3.Only channels 2 and 4 are recording to the tape player.

This happens when the switch is set to SYNC or 4 CH REC. I'm trying not to draw any conclusions just yet, but they are both the BUSS L in the SYNC position of the RECORD FUNCTION switch. The only thing left to do now is start taking it apart..... ughhhh
 
I took apart the 244 to have a look. right now I've traced the signal back to the RECORD FUNCTION switches, but havent made it any further.
My biggest problem is my service manual does not have schematics for the 244 with it. I did find some online for the 246, and may use that. I'm hoping tracing the signal will be the same.

This one is going to be a time taker, so for now, I think I'm going to switch over to the Tascam 134 tape deck. I'm hoping that this one will be a quickie.
 
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