Well I'M not ready for the hammer yet. I DO think it's my elastic band though. No, I'm not going to try and fix it myself...but it's an enormous help to be able to go to the repair shop and be able able to drop some of the technical terms bandied about here. It sure beats saying "Duh, my tape deck is busted, can you fix it"? You can just SEE their eyes light up with dollar signs when you do that?

Hi Leej. Sadly, after goin to Radio Shack for years, I stay clear of both of the ones near me now. On more than a couple of occasions I've watched the owners of both stores be unneccessarily nasty to customers who seemed to have legitimate complaints. And on a personal note, I took back a micro-cassette player, that I'd only bought a few hours before, that obviously had a busted control. The owner INSISTED that I had broken it...and if not, why hadn't I purchased the extended warranty (Three hours ago!) so they could send it back to the factory. All I wanted was a replacement (which they didn't have) or my money back (which they wouldn't hear of). I ended up with a credit note, which I used for batteries and cassettes, but boy, if that's their current stance dealing with 30 year customers (and the proof SHOULD be on their computer, considering the number of times I've given all the data they asked for) I gotta go to Walmart, even though it galls me. I know this can't be the same all over, 'cause in a smaller area the word would spread like lightning, but I've sure seen it coming in Toronto. Same with Tandy, where I buy my Leather supplies. Used to be they could separate the 'jerk' customers from the polite repeat ones, but now they don't even try.

Cheers

Rick