DAT-Heads Digest #774, Volume #2                 Mon, 20 May 96 17:12:02 EDT
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From: Olaf Kaluza <olaf@criseis.ruhr.de>
Subject: Error Rate Measurement of Sony WM-DT1
Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 13:51:53 +1030 (???)


You are the owner of Sony WM-DT1 Datman? And you are interested how
you can read out the errorrate of the drum-heads?

Ok I will explain how you can do this without opening your little friend.

At first, be warned you can kill your DT1 if you do something wrong!

Now let's us have a look at the upper side of the DT1.


/-------------------------------------------------\
|                                                 |
|           B                                     |
|                             Remote/Phones       |
|                                                 |
|                              XXXXXXXXX          |
\-------------------------------------------------/

                               ^       ^
                               |       |
                             Pin1    Pin9

B          Battery-LED

XXXXXXXXX  Remote-connector

You have to build a bridge from Pin8 to Pin9 of the connector.
(Switch Testmode ON)

I have done this by using a small part of tin foil. I put a small
stripe around the plug-in-part of the connector. After this you can
connect the remote-control to the DT1.

Be very carefully to _not_ bridge Pin1 and Pin2. These are the
power wires. This will _kill_ your DAT!!!


Now load a tape and press play. You will see a flashing zero instead
of the normal startid. With the volume+/- you can change this number
to one. (Testmode-1)

After this press BB/AVLS-Bass Boost button. Now you will see the
errorrate of one of the heads. (Head-A)  By pressing BB/AVLS again and
again you can switch between Head-A and Head-B.

By pressing SCAN/REPEAT you can go back to Testmode-selection. But
don't try another of this mode!  (There are eight.) Some of them are
designed for testing the mechanics.  This can kill you tape!

In Testmode-1 the display will show a 4-digit number like A 12 34. This
means that the errorrate for head A ist 0.1234.

The errorrate on my DT1 are between 0.0043 and 0.0150.  (Depends from
time to time and tape to tape.)  I don't know what ratings are good or
bad, but my DT1 is very new, so I think this is good.
I am interested in your results please write me about this.

Last word: I guarantee nothing! If you kill your DT1 than it is not my fault!


Olaf