Why all the discussion about time code? For tapers I would expect it to have absolutely no relevance.
Time code is a great time saver in video post production, when you run several cameras and sound recordings together. Once back at base you simple import the files and they align on the time line. We are talking the hours/ minuts/seconds/video frame timing here. A vide frame is about 1/25 of a second, which is the limit of resolution for time code. This is perfectly good for sound/video synch.
In the digital world (generally, there are variations) time code only affects the start of each segment (each recording). This is perfectly good for video where you make a lot of short takes, starting and stopping cameras.
But it is NOT sample accurate the way you need sound to be. For sound the resolution needs to be sample, that is about 1/44.100 of a second. And time code does not help with long (tens of minutes) recordings as for digital recorders generally resynch is not done while recording is running.
If you want to comibine sound from several recorders and mix together the only sure solution is word clock. This makes for sample accurate recording on several machines at the same. This sample accuracy allows you to mix the sound from two different recorders and not add any timing errors.
If you run two machines not connected with word-clock they can stay in synch for a while. How long they stay in synch depends on a lot of things, the temperature of the crystal is one important parameter. Often you can run for several minutes with similar units.
But multiple recordings can be done with free running recorders. You simply have to resynch now and then in postproduction. Not too difficult to do on song starts or on some specific drum hit. Very tedious though, but it can be done.
You could possibly send time code on radio if you want to stay synched. I thing I remember having seen something like that, not cheap though.
Gunnar