Your questions and advice is helping me greatly, as its not only bringing new info but also helping me logically work through all the possible variables. thanks again mate cheers
Glad it's useful. I hope you get it going, I remember struggling with this at first, mostly because the cable pinout in the manual was wrong and didn't include the servo line.
Anyway, I didn't have time to set up a chase lock today, and the video I took last year was too low-res to see what the EXT light does.
However, the MSR-24 manual says something like this:
[table="width: 500"]
[tr]
[td]
FIX LED[/td]
[td]
EXT LED[/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]On solid[/td]
[td]Off[/td]
[td]No sync signals are coming in[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]On solid[/td]
[td]Off[/td]
[td]Only the control signal is coming in[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]On solid[/td]
[td]Flashing[/td]
[td]Only the frequency reference is coming in[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Off[/td]
[td]On solid[/td]
[td]Both control and reference signals are coming in[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
...so it looks to me like the FIX light should go out and the VARI light should come on solid during full sync. On mine it tends to flash amber while the ATS-500 is switched on, and then goes solid when both decks are being synchronized.
However it sounds like you have problems with the integrity of the timecode signal and that needs to be sorted out first. Check the heads - clean them and record a fresh timecode. If you have a spare preamp or something it might be worth sticking that between the timecode out from the deck and the timecode in on the synchronizer. If the MTS1000 has a trimmer on that back to adjust the input gain on the timecodes, use that first.
If you go the preamp route, don't go crazy. If it's a signal level problem, there will be a sweet spot. Too low and you'll get dropouts. Too high and it'll distort and the TC reader won't like that either.
I have a pair of TimeLine Lynx synchronizers which I could never get working with the TSR-8s... But they do make handy timecode displays, and they also have the useful property of being able to clean up the incoming timecode by reconstructing it. I get significantly more reliable sync by passing the signals from the decks into that first. That's an expensive way to do it.
It's perhaps worth a note of caution that I originally started doing this to lock two TSR-8s together. This worked, and I recorded about 4 albums with it, but I did get really sick of it because it made mixdown a pain, sometimes there'd be a dropout or a loose cable and I'd have to start over.
What I did in the end was get a 24-track deck (originally an MSR-24, later an Otari MX80). I now record the main tracks from the synthesizers on the 24-track under sequencer control, and things which are performed manually or will otherwise require a ton of punch-ins (e.g. vocals, bass, special tape effects) are done on the TSR-8 and then dubbed onto the 24-track when I'm happy. That (A) saves wear and tear on the more expensive machine, (B) means that I only have to worry about tape sync when I dub the bass and vocals across and (C) means I can do time-shifting things like copy-paste choruses all-analogue by altering the timecode offset.
In short, tape sync is useful, and there is definitely a sense of achievement and satisfaction in seeing two decks run together under automatic control. But a deck with more tracks will make your life easier :3
https://youtu.be/0Muo8JLONlQ?t=53 (The Otari in the background is master, the TSR-8 in the foreground is slave - note how it winds back to the cue shortly after the song starts playing )