[Elecraft] electronic product standards
No, Ian, the mess of conflicting plug standards has not always been the case. There was a time when a 4 pin mic plug had pin one as mic and 2 as ptt and 3 as gnd. Johnson, Heath, and all the other xmitter makers AGREED. There was a time ... still somewhat with us... when the 6 pin Molex was the power connector of choice and AMAZINGLY K, I, Y, and others HAD THE SAME PIN OUT on these. The telephone style plug now arriving on so many rigs answers the manufacturers' dream because they are so difficult to self-install that the customer is nearly forced to purchase specific mics ... THEIR LINE. Too,There was a time when a ham would have sneered at a DIN plug, that nightmare--both to solder to and to cope with differences.So on and on. The use of different pin-outs is cause for consumer anger because the choice is not based on good engineering practice but on the desire to sell their own differentiated product to those who have also purchased their line of products. Because most of the K, I, and Y crop of mics are so equally bad, the only way to make their product different is not via quality but via a unique pin-out plug. Shameful business practice that only hurts the consumer. The reason Bob Heil's mics sell is that THEY ARE BETTER, and he has made an easy line of adapters, too. Elecraft made a good showing by trying to copy the Kenwood standard even if there is a problem with SOME CASES with pins 5 and 6 reversed. That I have the time to explain the obvious shows that I am retired, and fill in the blank. 73,Charles [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:23:07 +, Ian J Maude wrote: I cannot keep quiet any longer! :) What is all the noise about microphone compatibility? We are radio amateurs, it should be simple enough to wire a microphone for a rig. Just look at the pin outs on the mic and the rig and wire accordingly. The circuitry is not exactly complex! If we buy *any* radio we pretty much know that the mic wiring is going to be different. 4-way, 8-way, RJ45 connectors, the list goes on. What ever the manufacturer decides is the right way for them, this has always been the case. It really is quite simple. Is your microphone a dynamic type? If so, wire it for Kenwood and it will work. Does it need a voltage? Look at the diagrams as I mentioned before. Good grief! Elecraft are building the rigs for us now and we are still moaning! ;) 73 Ian ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] electronic product standards
Mic 'standard' - never happen - at least I hope it never happens. They started out with one pin for audio and could end up with one pin for everything as more and more 'brains' are moved into the microphone and the connection to the radio turns into a one-wire serial link. This could give us a compatible connecter with completely incompatible 'data streams'. Break out your wire cutters and soldering iron. Visit http://www.qsl.net/g4wpw/date.html to view the myriad of pin-outs for and within each of the manufacturer's microphones and radios. If we need a standard, I propose that it be based on a 14-pin JONES plug, that would look pretty nifty on the front of the future K4. OK, /sarcasm off I'll go shovel the driveway. 73 Bill N2BC ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] electronic product standards
In a message dated 2/13/08 5:45:39 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There was a time when a 4 pin mic plug had pin one as mic and 2 as ptt and 3 as gnd. Johnson, Heath, and all the other xmitter makers AGREED. When was that? I've had Johnson transmitters that used the Ampenol MC1 type mike connector, and Heaths that used the odd 2 pin connector that is hard to find today. Others used the 1/4 stereo plug, except those that used the version which is 0.206 (PJ-068?) Of course it was common in those days to modify the rig to use the connector you liked, and there was lots of room in the rig to do it. But the original equipment connectors were all over the map. The four-pin connector was a Japanese standard for a while. But then came mikes that needed voltage at the mike for the element, mikes that had DTMF pads on the back, mikes with built in preamps, mikes with up/down frequency switches, etc. One more reason to use CW! 73 de Jim, N2EY ** The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards. Go to AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp0030002565) ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] electronic product standards
holy cow,,, a $1.59 electret mic element from radio shack works GREAT with all my icoms and my K2s and K3. And where do the kenwood Icom and Yaesu Mics ( bob's ) come from from companies that actually make microphones like Primo, panasonic Foster in JA land. In EU Sennheiser... AKGetc.just look in mouser digikey. Ham radio is too small a market to make mic elementsHam companies can assemble them; design them , and MARKET THEM TO HAMS YES... Even Elecraft acknowledges this reality. they get them made, the way they want...and are entitled to mark them up so they can design advertise, maintain inventory and MAKE HAMS HAPPY who want a matching...esthetically pleasing solution. O Yes THEY HAVE THE MATCHING CONNECTOR... which is called a foster connector ( the mic company that supplies all those mics). back to cw K3 ASSEMBLY PIX @ http://picasaweb.google.com/Bill.SteffeySr/K3 NY9H STATION PIX @ http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=1771119a=13683578p=75658236f=0 ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
RE: [Elecraft] electronic product standards
Bill, NY9H wrote: a $1.59 electret mic element from radio shack works GREAT with all my icoms and my K2s and K3. --- Yes, those Radio Shack electret elements are excellent. I have one mounted in an scavenged hand-held mic housing that works FB. The element has a very wide frequency response, since it's designed for general purpose audio work, but that's not a problem with modern rigs with filters such as the K2 or K3. Back in the old days of vacuum tube A.M. rigs, the modulators tended to broad as a barn, passing all audio put into them with only minimal shaping provided by the values used for coupling and bypass capacitors in the speech amplifier stages. There were some microphones produced for the communications market back then such as the famous Astatic D-104 which had a microphone element with a shaped response showing a distinct hump around 3 kHz, rolling off slowly at lower frequencies and somewhat faster at higher frequencies. That hump helped with articulation by emphasizing the mid-range speech frequencies. Astatic even published a frequency response chart showing exactly what it looked like, but back in those days most microphone element manufacturers provided frequency response charts with their various mics. I don't know if anyone is doing that today for mainstream communications microphones. Even the high end Ham mics only offer general and uninformative comments about shaping and clarity that say much and convey little. Interestingly, one of the big exceptions is the inexpensive little Radio Shack electret element. It comes with a frequency response chart showing a very flat response across the audio spectrum. But all is not lost: the SSB filters in modern rigs prevent excessive audio band passes and the K3 goes farther yet, offering a transmit equalizer with which one can shape the audio response to suit one's voice. When doing that, it's good to start with a wide range flat microphone element response like the Radio Shack electret. I rather expect, although they don't say as far as I can see, the high end Ham mic manufacturers are using elements with a flat response and perhaps doing some sort of shaping in design of the enclosure. If so, then choosing a Ham mic today is really a matter of cosmetics: choosing what looks nice. Another list member here asked what, exactly, is the best response to provide the best intelligibility under all conditions and how can that be seen unambiguously on a display like spectrogram? That's a good question. Sometimes we get too many choices. I'm happy to record my rig using a wide-band auxiliary receiver and adjust the equalizer for a sound that I'd like to hear from the other end in a rag chew. But then I don't spend long hours yelling into the mic in a contest or trying to shout down the others in a DX pileup ;-) Ron AC7AC ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
