The Professional quality Uher 4000 Report-S Tape Recorder from 1963

The Uher 4000 Report-S tape recorder was a high quality, battery operated, portable tape recorder that was frequently used by journalists and broadcasters in the mid 1960s because it offered both high fidelity and recording flexibility.

My Uher 4000 Report-S tape recorder

I bought my Uher 4000 from eBay a few weeks ago and paid a little over £40 for it shipping included. I actually intended to buy a different version of the model but missed out.

I saw the original unit I intended to buy one afternoon at about 4:00 pm. It was on for a ‘buy in now’ price of £25 plus a few pounds for shipping and I was very tempted, but I did a bit of research and checked the photos the seller had published before I added it to my eBay basket. However, when I added it, I got a message saying, ‘This item is out of stock’.

That was at about 4:07 pm so someone else had obviously also seen it and acted quicker than me. When I looked back at the advert, I think it had only been placed at about 3:45 pm the same day, so I took the speed that it disappeared as an indication of how good the price was.

So, with my interest piqued, I had another look on eBay and found a different model which the seller reported as untested. That was in an auction, so I had to wait and in the end my bid of £36.87 just beat the next best bidder who offered £36.

As it turned out it was probably a better buy than the original machine I viewed, because that first machine was advertised as not working and the one I bought was only untested¹.

The unit turned up a few days after I completed the purchase and the first signs were not encouraging. I fitted five new batteries in the recorder and tried playing the tape that was supplied with the machine but found although the tape spools turned for a couple of seconds the unit soon died.

I thought there may be damp in the unit, so I put it down near a radiator for a few days to dry up, periodically retrying it to see if it was working any better. Although I couldn’t get the tape drive to work, I did find that if I pulled the tape through the machine and past the heads, there was sound coming out of the speaker, so I was fairly sure the electronics were working.

Although I was sure the batteries were OK, I decided to send for some more to make absolutely sure that they were OK, and to my surprise when I fitted new batteries the tape recorder started working perfectly!

I did find however over the course of the next few days, the batteries seemed to deplete quite rapidly, so I don’t know if there is actually a fault on my version of the Uher 4000 report or if the machine is very power hungry.

The Uher joins the small collection of vintage radios and tape recorders that I’ve written about on Everything Vintage.

Pictures of the Uher 4000 Report-s Tape Recorder

Description of the Uher 4000 Tape recorder

As I said in the introduction, the Uher 4000 series of tape recorders are of a very high quality build standard and were made for serious professional use. The unit can record at a variety of different tape speeds, and can be run from both battery power, or from an optional rechargeable battery pack.

In design, the unit is made to be used either as a desktop recorder, or can be used in the field and operated with the unit held in a shoulder strap/case. The operating controls are then presented to the user on the front panel which will then be at the top of the unit.

Recording and Playback speeds.

To provide maximum flexibility, the Uher 4000 report-s can record or playback at any of 4 different tape speeds.

For maximum quality the user would select 7 1/2 inches per second, and the recorder would then record at a quality that could be used during TV or Radio broadcasts. This setting would use the speed that the majority of studio based tape recorders could use². The down side of this speed is that the tape would only last for about half an hour per side.

In order to get a longer recording time from the 5 inch reels of tape that were the maximum size the recorder could use, the user could switch the machine down to 3 3/4 inches per second. At this speed the quality would not be quite so good, but the tape would last twice as long on each side – about 60 minutes.

If it was essential to make longer recordings, especially if the source of the sound was not particularly high fidelity (like speech for example), the speed could be notched down to 1 7/8 per second. This would give about two hours per side but the quality would not be very good.

Finally the recorder could be dropped in speed one more setting and use 15/16th inch per second. This would give the maximum recording time, but the quality was pretty poor.

To set the different speeds, the recorder had a main ‘On’ lever which would allow the tape speed to be selected. This can be seen on the photo here where the different speeds are clearly marked at the bottom of each ‘slot’ the control can be dropped into.

All of the recording times given however would also depend on the type of tape used. I seem to remember that there was standard play tape and long play tape – the long play tape was made on a thinner base material and therefore more of it could be fitted on a reel.

One thing I found on my recorder is that it’s important to not leave the recorder with the control engaged because the power is on and basically the batteries get depleted very quickly if it’s left in this state.

Recording and Playback with the Uher 4000.

The procedure to use the Uher 4000 to record sound is fairly straight forward.

It is fairly obvious to say, but of course the machine must be loaded with tape for a recording to be made. A full spool of tape is fitted to the left hand spool holder, and an empty reel fitted to the right hand holder and then the tape is threaded between the two and through the narrow slop at the front of the tape deck.

With the tape threaded onto the unit, it is turned on with the speed setting switch, choosing the desired speed for the recording. Then, the signal source is connected to the recorder; this could be a radio or tape recorder, record player or microphone. Since each of these different sources had different electronic characteristics, the input needed to be selected using the end switch on the front panel.

If the source was a tape recorder, radio or record deck the input socket on the side of the unit was used, but the microphone input is fitted to the front panel just below the On/Off speed selector switch.

Once the source is selected the record key on the tape transport controls can be pressed and this will allow the recording level control to be adjusted to set the correct level for the recording.

This is achieved with the third of the control knobs and the small meter mounted above the volume/tone controls.

Once the level is set, the recording can be started by holding down the record key and also pressing the start key to get the tape moving. Whilst the recording is being made, the volume control can be used to set the level being played through the built in speaker for monitoring purposes. If the monitor is not required, the volume control can be pulled, and that switches the internal speaker off.

After the recording has been made, it can be played back by winding the tape back using the rewind control³ and then the Start key will set the playback function and the volume and tone controls used to set, well the volume and tone.

Other interesting features of the Uher 4000

The reel holders for the Uher 4000 have the same sort of retainers that are fitted to the Grundig TK1 tape recorder, which I guess is a standard for portable recorders that can be used upright.

The microphone originally supplied with the Uher 4000 had a pause key that could pause the recording, which would be useful when the unit was used to record interviews with people, which would have been one of the recorders main use cases.

An accessory was available which would allow the Uher 4000 to record telephone conversations. I guess this is one reason for the 15/16th second tape speed; since telephone circuits only had a frequency response up to about 4.5 kHz, the poor response of the slowest speed wouldn’t be a concern.

Uher 4000 Report s handbook

My copy of the Uher 4000 had the manual supplied with it, so I’ve included that here since it may be useful to other owners.

Uher 4000 Report-s Specifications

• Uher 4000 report-s Battery operated tape recorder
• Made in Germany in about 1963
• Four record/playback speeds – 7.5, 3.75, 1.875 & 0.9375 inches per second
• Can use standard D cells x 5 or an optional mains chargeable lead acid cell
• Reel retainers for operation ‘on the go’
• 5 inch max reel size
• Two track, mono recording and playback
• Very solid, high quality build standard

1. although many people on eBay use ‘untested’ when they mean ‘not working’ [↩]
2. although studio recorders would possibly also have a higher speed of 15 inches per second [↩]
3. marked with an arrow facing < [↩]