I love me some thrift shops. I didn't buy this for this junk blog, but I bought this for personal reasons. Make no mistake, it is junk. But, to a kid that grew up making tapes on this damn thing, when I found one in near perfect condition, I had to buy it. "No! T Foot" was actually recorded on my first GE tape recorder which was this very machine without the silver speaker screen or the built in microphone. I had my tape recorder at a friend/babysitters house and being a kid, I had to record myself letting a hot and beefy "wind" fly. So, because it had a wired microphone, I positioned myself on the fabric covered recliner in such a way to "Dutch oven" the microphone and let my gas come out. Keep in mind, I was paying attention to the exclusive fidelity of my ass flaps as it resonated a small but powerful "Ferrrrrrt".  I was that age. I just created a masterpiece of audio wizardry.

I didn't realize, that back in the days when parents spanked their kids when they did something stupid, my friend had done something to offend his mom. Therefore his mom responded with a good swift open handed spank to his rear. He let out a horrified "NO!" then you heard the SMACK. When I played back the tape, I was thinking that I had a $1000 pinpoint highly efficient condenser microphone because it caught the "punishment" at the exact time I "punished" the microphone. Thus, I created the code "No! T Foot". It sounded like someone shouting NO then you hear a sharp smack which sounds like "TCCCH" and then my wind was "Frrrt" , which said fast, sounds like FOOT.  Only on the junk blog will you get a two paragraph explanation of something so insignificant yet, very lasting...to me.

This is essentially identical to my first GE from the back. The microphone wire had given way and didn't work well despite splices and speaker wire replacements. Plus, I used it so much, the play button had worn through the plastic "stop" and would not stay down. I had to do surgery on it and jam a marker in the place where the play button was to get it to play. I had moved to a different city and had new friends and one of them had this unit that he really didn't use. I think I paid him $5 for it, which was a TON of money to me, but it was easier to record tapes with the microphone on the unit itself. 

I mean everything was the same. You still had to manually release the Kracken and the space that said "IC" covered up where the microphone is on this unit. I learned all about "Auto Level" using this tape recorder. There would be no more "No! T Foot" with this one. I'd have to sit on the machine, ahhhh but I was a feather weight back in the day. You see, when you were recording a silent area and then had a loud noise, the ALC (auto level control) would freak out and boost the volume of what it was trying to record, then it would "jump an audio cliff" when the noise started again. Lots of my tapes made on this have all sorts of split second distortions caused by this. Of course, this was a cheap tape recorder, and it didn't have any way to either turn off the ALC or manually control it. I couldn't complain, the play button WORKED and wouldn't double as a highlighter.

FEED ME CERTRONS FROM ZAYRE OR SIM/RAINBOWS FROM K-MART!!!!!

We used to go to a Zayre in Elyria and that's where I got the orange Certron C60s (30 minutes a side) in the three packs for about a dollar. Again, when I was really young, that was a TON of money, but I had to have them. When they ran a silly deal on them like buy one get one free, I begged mom for the buck so that I could feed the monster and make noise into my stupid tape machine. I did parodies of SNL's Weekend Update having Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd at the news desk and my own "Dan Killy" as the on the street reporter. I taped off of a GE B&W TV many tapes of the "Hoolihan and Big Chuck" (Later Big Chuck and Little John) show.  When I moved near the lake, I was near the first K-Mart I ever went too and they had "SIM" tapes that were cheaper than "Rainbow" tapes, but I got them both so I could record parodies of G98's G-Team In The Morning Show and theme songs from TV shows like Delta House (Animal House in short lived TV format.) I'd seen these devices that actually recorded television programs where you could watch the program over and over on your TV rather than just listening to the static created by recording it from the speaker.... It was the early 80's. They were refrigerator sized boxes that cost a million dollars. Ahh, but I could revisit the audio of  "a very special episode of M*A*S*H" all I wanted in Certron fidelity. 

Yep. It was the same. I had an electric adapter for these GE recorders twice, but the wires would always go bad within a year. I remember when I got this GE, I asked for the really expensive NICAD batteries and charger for this so I wouldn't burn through another set of silver Eveready general purpose batteries. I got I think they were "Dynacharge" batteries, and well, they were lumps of coal by the time I couldn't use them anymore. They got used up for sure. Plus, I then asked for an AM/FM tape recorder that you could plug in! No more of those batteries. No more adapters! My Mom took me to the K-Mart but they didn't have the one that I wanted in stock, so I got the McDonald Instruments tape recorder with the fancy power meter. If you've been reading this blog, you know I have only the power meter to show for that POS.  http://ricochet.boomerthedog.net/blog/junk/2015/07/macdonald-industries-finest.html  I'd completely forgotten about this tape recorder until I found it in the thrift store. Now I gotta edit  that  previous post. Damn. More work. I need a beer. Junk Blog. -Ric