Sheila -- seems to me you're getting pretty good advice here. I've had the problem several times before and cleaned the little rubber round turny thing (this is a technical term) with a swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol.

If that doesn't work, it does sound like a job for an audio-visual technician. And the deck is an actual part of the tape player, so that wasn't just a cute way of saying "your tape machine, dummy." I don't think that it's "too mechanical a question," just a question like telling a doctor over the phone that your stomach hurts, then resisting the advice to come to the office so s/he can check it out. If the easy, amateur fixits don't work, you'll have to either get a new one or take it to someone who fixes them for a living. And if s/he doesn't know what to do when the tape machine spits tape out, s/he ought to go into another line of work.

Good luck.

ww