Constant clicking/ticking/beating sound when recording

I’m a newbie and am not sure what I’m doing. I’m trying to transfer music from old cassettes and I noticed a "clicking/beating/ticking/ sound when there isn’t any music. I thought maybe it was the tape making some kind of noise because these are really old tapes. However, I decided to press record with no music playing and I got the clicking/beating/ticking sound then,too. I’ve attached a jpg of the way the wave looks. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’m 72, so if it’s a complicated fix, I probably want be able to use it. I’m hoping it’s something simple.
Stay safe and thanks.
Shiney
Clicking wave.jpg

What sort of tape machine is it, and how is it connected to your computer?

Thanks for replying Steve. It’s a Reshow cassette player plugged in with a USB cable to my computer running Windows 10 64.

What’s so weird to me is that I get this clicking regardless of if the cassette player is playing. If I just click on the record button in Audacity, I get the clicking/beating thing. It doesn’t always do it and sometimes it’s louder than other times, but it happens often enough.

I’ve been writing songs for years (over 50) with a friend of mine who is having health issues. He wants us to put these songs that no one has heard but the two of us on the internet, so that’s what I’m trying to do. Some of the songs we’ve written are on CDs, but the older ones are on very old cassettes. The Audacity software works great, except for this intermittent clicking/beating sound when it’s recording.

I thought I might be able to do it in Reaper, but it’s a little too complicated for this old man to figure out.

Thanks again for replying.

Something like this:
61ahpmtu0IL.AC_SS260.jpg
Do you still have the receipt?
Are you able to test the cassette player on another computer?

I don’t think it’s the tape player Steve because it’s starts doing it when I start recording in Audacity. The tape player is not running it’s just plugged into my computer so Audacity will work. I don’t have another computer to test the tape player with, but I don’t hear the clicking/beating when I play the cassette in the tape player and listen to it through speakers.
Thanks for replying.