It's possible you tightened it too tight, or tightened the wrong screw. Most tonearms use a gimbal suspension. There is an inner screw, and another screw surrounding that. the outer screw actually tightens the tonearm, while the inner screw locks the outer screw in place so you have to loosen it first to tighten the arm.

You can tighten the suspension this way to get rid of play in the tonearm. If you tighten it too much though, it won't work right. It will have too much force trying to pull it away from the center and will cause the needle to skip, especially in close to the center of the record.

It's basically a balance of removing as much play as possible, while still keeping it able to work. The suspension wears down like everything else though. If the tonearm is old or damaged, no amount of playing around will get it to work. If it's doing what you say it is, a new tonearm might be your best bet.

well...

i spent about 2 hours this afternoon tinkering around with the screws on my table, and i finally got it fixed! it took a while to understand what the suspension was responding to, but once i got all the screws out and put them back in, i had a good idea of what was effecting what.

thanks for the help :-)

now i won't have to go the place that told me flat out over the phone they were going to have to order me a new tone arm, without even looking at the deck.

much obliged.
jesse

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