The tape counter wasn't working, so we took the cover off, and the little toothed belt has snapped.
A replacement has been ordered though, and once it gets here we'll fit it. 
The seller is also giving Ria a refund of fifty quid, which more than covers the cost of the new belts.

Today we connected up the Revox B77 tape recorder that we bought from eBay a couple of weeks ago. We collected it from the seller while we were away, he offered to ship it, but we didn't want to risk it being damaged by the parcel smashers

@Max Yeah I know, jumping in at the deep end with both feet first is what I do 

You should have used a proper smiley like this   then it would have been more obvious..!

You've both mistaken the nature of my first comment... cue the " ;)" at the end of the sentence. Of course it is an interesting topic to discuss, otherwise I wouldn't have taken the time to write the whole post, which is a full reply to OP's question lol

The Tilley lampses are wonderful to look at, but they're a right pain (and scary  ) to light until you get the hang of it

@AgentHalogen_87 , yes you are the one that got me into the Chalwyn Lampses, and don't forget I've got one of the road lanterns that you can have.
Recently I've been tempted into getting some of the Tilley lampses, and we're collecting one on our way home from our trip.! 

An interesting one this and thanks to @AgentHalogen_87 for bringing it up. 

@Max - I don't think it's a case of having to justify anything, it's just curiosity. Why do some people like lamps and others are more into the fixtures..? It's an interesting topic of conversation to me.

Personally, I am more interested in the actual lamps themselves, because I am interested in how they function. How and why does a SOX lamp produce monochromatic light..? Why does an incandescent lamp have the colour temperature that it does..? That sort of thing.

A fixture to me is merely somewhere to put a lamp so it can be of practical use, like street lighting or lighting a supermarket or whatever. As I don't have the requirement to do anything like that, and I am more interested in the technical aspects of how lamps work, fixtures are of secondary importance to me.That's not to belittle anyone who is interested in fixtures, it's just not what lighting collection is to me. Apart from anything else, we don't have the storage space for what we have, if we started on fixtures, we'd be out in the street with nowhere to sleep

We do have a few fixtures that we like, though. Gemma, our LPS Gamma 6, and Gary her HPS brother, also Johnny our Beta 5 are important parts of our collection.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing what everyone else thinks. Sammi and I are on a road trip at the moment so may not reply immediately.

Ria & Sammi 

Cobrahead - That's great to hear, I look forward to seeing them! I do wonder why the Americas didn't take a fancy to low pressure sodium except in the dark sky and turtle safe areas. But I believe you guys did hang on to mercury vapour for a long time though with a range of different wattages

Max - oh you don't have to justify anything, especially if you don't entirely know the answer!  I merely thought it would be an interesting conversation topic. Interesting to hear it was the looks of the lamps that got you interested in the technology behind them, and that baby photo sounds funny  It's great that you are able to preserve these important pieces of lighting history for us all to enjoy here on this wonderful site!

Do we really need to justify why we collect what we collect? ;) Personally, I don't even know how it all started. I was told that I've been fascinated with lights and lamps even before I spoke my first words - there's even a picture of me as a baby holding a lamp lol. I got serious about it around the age of seven or eight when I started collecting lamps. At first my interest for lamps was purely an aesthetic one, i.e., they looks intriguing and emit interesting light colors, and then I really got into the science and technology of it to the point that I ended up working in lamp R&D.

Now, my professional activities are elsewhere due to the phase out of conventional lighting (still working in science and engineering, wrapping up a PhD in plasma physics at the moment), and I have reached my objectives for the lamp collection. So, I started a long distillation process to keep the most valuable lamps from a historical, technological and, of course, sentimental point of view. An important aspect of it all is to share the fascinating knowledge gained all these years collecting and working on lamps, and that's why I'm here. Of course, in this process I focus on quality over quantity, this subject matter deserves that and this is necessary in order not to fall into the mediocrity trap that some (if not most) online communities have succumbed to. So, I'm happy to be here and I really hope our kind and dedicated hosts (Ria and Sammi) will keep maintaining the high standards that make this site/community so nice to contribute to!

Actually, I have quite a few luminaires...I just need to post some more... 
I also collect all types of HID, and unlike you don't really collect SOX, that's not because I don't like it, but because its uncommon here in North America.
I do have two SOX18 wallpacks along with lamps, but that's about it.