What is antiskating and what is it's function?

jani schrieb:

Hi, I posess a Technics 1210 MK2.Can anyone please explain me what is "antiskating" and how does it work.My Turntable is new and I need to know these functions properly in order to operate it.So please help. Regards, Bumba

anti-skating refers to those people who do not like to skate. these people often take to skiing or snow-boarding.

jani schrieb:

Hi, I posess a Technics 1210 MK2.Can anyone please explain me what is "antiskating" and how does it work.My Turntable is new and I need to know these functions properly in order to operate it.So please help. Regards, Bumba

sorry, the situation was just begging me.....

on a more serious note - anti-skating is a complex topic & there are many viewpoints on it hence many methods to resolve it. Basically, it refers to the centrifugal force that effects the pivot tone-arm as the tone-arm tracks the LP groove from the outer edge to the inner edge. The centrifugal force will pull the tone-arm towards the spindle (center hole of the LP). Linear tracking tone-arms do not suffer from skating since they linearly track the groove.
As you know, the LP groove is V-shaped. One edge of the V is right channel & the other edge of the V is the left channel. To get good stereo sound, the stylus (don't call it a bloody "needle"!! if you are getting into vinyl then please use the correct terminology. Thank you!) must sit in the center of the V such that there is equal contact with grooves of both channels.
This will happen if the anti-skating is correctly set such that the tone-arm is not pulled towards the spindle (center). If the anti-skating is not set, the stylus will be pushed against the inner groove (left channel) & you will get hardly or zero sound from the right channel. Over time, this is bad for your LPs as the stylus will mutilate the left channel groove & you will end up hearing a lot of groove distortion (which sounds like the voices splitting when the music gets loud or when the artist hits a high note in his/her voice).
So, basically, you need to adjust the provided anti-skating dial such that you get equal sound from the left & right channels. In such a case, the tone-arm is free of any centrifugal force & can freely float from outer-most groove to inner-most groove as it tracks.
Getting the anti-skating just right is a trial & error thing & will be adjusted over many LP playing sessions. It is usually not done in 1 sitting. Note that the key is to get the quantity of anti-skating just right because if you over-do it, then the tone-arm is (guess what??) slammed against the outer-groove (right channel) only & you get minimal sound from the left channel. In such a case, you have too much centripetal force (force pushing the tone-arm outwards towards the outer edge of the LP).
What's a good way to check if you have your anti-skating set correctly?? One technique I have used is to find an old LP that you do not care about which has a large section of the lead-out groove. The lead-out groove is the area around the center of the LP after all the music tracks are completely finished. You will notice that this area is shinny since it has a widely-spaced lead-out groove. Place the stylus (very carefully) on this shinny part of the LP. If you have zero anti-skating set, the stylus will zip right away towards the spindle (because there is so much centrifugal force on it). As you gradually start increasing the anti-skating (the operative word here is "gradually"!) you will notice that the speed at which the stylus moves towards the spindle/center gradually slows down. Keep increasing the anti-skating until - you guessed it correctly! - you see the stylus move outwards i.e. away from the spindle/center. At this point you have too much anti-skating! Back off/reduce the amount of anti-skating such that the stylus slowly moves towards the spindle/center. Note that you will have to carefully put the stylus on the shinny lead-out groove part again & again as you gradually adjust the amount of anti-skating.
Now, this is a good starting point. No sir, you are NOT done setting anti-skating! You have only begun! Now play your LPs & see if you like the overall sound. If yes, leave the anti-skating setting. If not, adjust/tweak very little at a time. Then, re-listen to your LPs until you like the overall sound. Like I wrote before, anti-skating is adjusted over a period of time. Anti-skating is very important to playing LP records without destroying them. So, do NOT for-go this step....
Hope that this helps......

I forgot to add a link of some nice zoomed in views of the LP grooves:

http://www.recordtech.com/vinylgrooves.htm