Report about Thin Tape purchase.

In May 2000 JIVE ordered a total of 150 Quantegy thin tapes type  
741-59GQ11 for the EVN tape pool. The tapes were delivered in July.
Quantegy was not willing to deliver these tapes on self-packing glass reels. 
So, Jan Buiter modified one of the 16 DPU's at Jive and developed 
a procedure to re-reel the tapes onto self-packing glass reels. 
The developed technique is such that when the new thin tape runs
on the modified DPU from the suppliers metal reel (with a much higher 
flange separation) to the precision self-packing glass reel, 
the tape is allowed to move sidewards at the first half
of the tape path and guided only at the end of the tape path.
This acts as a funnel. With this technique we were also able
to recover some badly packed tapes. 
Because  there were rumours that Acrometal would stop with the production 
of glass reels, JIVE ordered a total of 500 self-packing glass reels. 
This should also cover future purchase of thin tapes.
At NRAO we ordered a total of 600 empty tape boxes.
Accessories like foam inserts and new latches are also ordered.
The price of a new re-reeled thin tape on a self-packing glass reel 
and put in a tape box is $ 1,200.00 per tape.  
Since the delivery times of these accessories are up to the end 
of the year 2000, it is not likely that the tapes become available 
for operations before the beginning of the year 2001.

Jan Buiter

Dwingeloo, 9 October 2000