Method and apparatus for determining and using head parameters in a helical scan recorder

A method of conducting a write splice operation with a helical scan recorder which records information in helical tracks upon a storage media, the helical scan recorder having a rotating drum upon which a write head and a read head are mounted, the write head and read head being separated on the drum by an actual axial offset distance which differs from a reference axial offset distance by an axial offset variance, the write splice operation to occur at a write splice location, the method comprising:

• reading tracks previously recorded on the storage media, including servo information recorded on the tracks up to the write splice location;
• determining a value indicative of the axial offset variance;
• storing the value indicative of the axial offset variance in a memory;
• using the stored value indicative of the axial offset variance in order to control positioning of the write head so that a track subsequently recorded at the write splice location will have uniform track pitch with tracks previously recorded upstream from the write splice location;
• recording at least one track at the write splice location.