Howard, the only thing I know of that you can do that will sometimes help tape
squeak is to use head lubricant on the recorder itself.  Sometimes that will get
you buy enough to play a tape once or twice.  It doesn't work about as often as
it does so good luck with it.  That's really the only thing I can suggest.
Remember to lube the tape guides themselves when you lube the heads.

I've got old issues of QST somewhere on reel-to-reel and they tend to squeak.
If you're really serious you can mess with the pad pressure on the tape heads
but that requires a little extra equipment that most home recorders do not have.

Tom


Tom Brennan  KD5VIJ, CCC-A/SLP
web page http://titan.sfasu.edu/~g_brennantg/sonicpage.html