VCR recording (with no manual!)

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I have an old Akai VS-G204 PAL/SECAM VCR (yes - outside of the US).

I recently moved countries twice - to NYC and now in Hong Kong - and cannot find the VCR's user manual.

I have managed to set it up so that it plays OK, but cannot for the life of me remember how the recording is supposed to work.

I have two cables from the VCR back to the TV - one standard RF and the other audio/visual. So I can see the playback on either channel 0 (RF cable) or the AV channel of the TV (AV cable).

From what I can recall, once I am playing a cassette on the "playback" channel, and then press "stop", and switch between the "VCR/TV" to "TV" on my VCR remote, I am supposed to see the TV stations, which will vary as I use "Channel Up/Down" on my VCR remote control. And thus I can record these stations.

But all I see on the screen is a blue-screen, which does not respond to changing the "VCR/TV" switch to "TV".

It seems that I am missing something basic, which I am sure I could figure out if I had the user manual. Any ideas out there?

Thanks,
Jonathan