I decided not to post this.

Here's one (okay, one of many) that has me stumped.

I decided to set up my turntable, so I unpacked it and brought it in from the store room. Initially I had a problem with the cartridge, but I managed to resolve it (well, I got it really close).

Set up the turntable. Plugged it in to the receiver. Leveled it. Leveled the tone arm. Set the tracking force. Set the anti-skate. Piece of cake.

Ready to go.

Plugged in the power and dug out an album to check everything. When I moved the tone arm into position, the turntable started turning, which was a good sign. But when I lowered the tone arm, the stylus did not touch the record. Missed by just thaaaat much. Okay. Check the manual lowering mechanism; it's in the proper position, not holding the tone arm up. Hmm. Maybe try the tracking force (can you say Hail Mary?), so I cranked in another 1/2 gram. No help. Another half gram. No help.

After farting around for awhile, I took the record off and put it back in its sleeve and unplugged the turntable from the power. Now, when I move the tone arm into position and lower it, the stylus drops right down to the mat. Took out the extra gram I had added to the tracking force and it still dropped right down to the mat.

Now I'm confused. Time to recheck it. Exactly the same as before: the stylus won't drop onto the record. Even after unplugging the power so the record won't turn, the stylus will not drop onto the record. But if I remove the record, the stylus will drop onto the mat. Thinking I was imagining things, or had gotten some bad vicodin, I tried it several times: put the record on, the stylus won't contact it. Take the record off, the stylus touches the mat.

Now, the record is touching absolutely nothing except the mat. It doesn't even come close to any mechanism. I'm sure there is something really, really simple that just hasn't occurred to me to look at, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.

I would just buy a new turntable, but if it's ghosts in the machine, that won't help.

I had decided not to post the above because I found the problem. When I typed the line about it being something really, really simple, I went in and just stared at the damn thing for a couple of minutes. Bingo! Staring at me.

The problem I had with the cartridge was that the cartridge wasn't for the head shell on this tone arm. The back of the cartridge bumped into the connectors where the leads from the cartridge plug into the head shell. Because of this, I could not move the cartridge back far enough, and so the overhang could not be properly adjusted. So I very carefully removed and bent the connectors on the leads from the cartridge. After reinstalling them I could get the overhang to within 1mm of perfect, which is good enough for me.

Well, the tiny green lead was bent in a fashion that when the record was on the turntable, the lead would contact the record, preventing the stylus from dropping. But the error was so small that when the record was removed, the tiny change in tone arm angle prevented the green lead from touching, so the stylus would drop.

Yeah, this is some boring shit, but it's a good reminder to look for simple problems first.

Curious.  Can't think of a single reason for that.

I ASSUME the turntable doesn't have a cue lever -- you put the stylus over the record, the platter starts spinning, and the stylus hovers until you flip the cue lever back.  I forget which turntable had that -- Dual 1218 perhaps.

I ASSUME the turntable doesn't have an automated record drop -- you put the LP on the spindle a couple inches off the platter, then hit play.  The record drops and begins spinning.  On my automatic changer which did this, there was a shorty spindle to replace the tall one when you're only playing a single record, but it had to be inserted just so to depress some kind of interlock lever tied into the longer spindle.

[edit: nevermind.]

The turntable does have a cue lever.

It does have an automated drop, but I have lost the spindle for that.

I could have noted that the cue lever is not working properly. When the lever is moved to the up position, the lifting mechanism only moves a very small amount. I have been trying to find something on the net about this but have found nothing. I did learn how to fix this problem on a Pioneer turntable. Whoopee.

The thing isn't worth shipping away for repairing that bit, and the rest of the turntable is in like-new condition (except for a little vintage dust). But I don't like having things around that don't work properly. It's a character flaw.

Also found a couple more cartridges lying about. One is a Shure V-15, which was an excellent cartridge, but it needs a small repair and has no stylus, so out with that. The other one is a Shure M80E in what looks like a Garrard head shell. This is the one that has spring suspension. What a hoot! Won't work with the tone arm I have, so out with that also. I think I may have picked up these when cleaning out my parents' house after they died. My dad loved Shure cartridges. The V15 was in the original package and had an $80 price sticker on it. Lot of money for a cartridge back then.

Still want to figure out how to fix that damned lifter.

I fixed one a hundred years ago. Bent piece of metal, if memory serves.