Help me understand the basic function of recording on a DAT recorder

I bougth a secondhand DAT recorder on ebay, with only a small german basic manual
I have uploaded scans here: http://if837.bravehost.com/dat/

I have no experience working with dat players before, I need to know the basic functions how it works.

If i have a dat tape with previous recorded material, start-codes,skip-ids do i need to delete this before starting from scratch?

starting from the beginning of the tape, should i leave 20 sec at the beginning silent, using REC MUTE function?

where does the auto Start- Id mark on the tape, or should i use manual start- id mode?

do i need to make a start ID for each program, or do i use the skip - id function for that

how do i change from 48, khz to 44.1 on this player ? or could i leave it at 48 khz ?

If someone could run down the basic functions how to record/delete/edit on a DAT player it would be very helpful to me.
thankyou for you help in advance.