[Elecraft] Bad Heil mic
Paul Hendershott
[email protected]
Sun Jan 13 12:05:21 2002
Dear Eric, Wayne, & Gary,
Since I got K2 #2278 together, I've been very happy operating CW, but
not very successful on SSB. The only SSB contacts I've made were by
literally screaming into the MH2 mic. And it seemed that I could only
get any movement on my in-line watt meter by speaking into the "top"
part of the heil mic and almost nothing out when speaking into the front
of the mic.
Well, I decided to take a look inside the mic and was very disappointed.
The bigger front mounted mic was not even connected. In fact, the leads
to it had been clipped off in 3 different places(obviously intentional
but to what purpose, I can't even guess). I also found the padding for
the smaller top mic was buried under 2 pieces of foam - both folded in
half making 4 layers in front of the mic. It's a wonder anyone could
hear me at all. (When I think of all the hours I wasted calling & trying
to answer CQ's the last two months to no avail, I feel that strangling
someone from the Heil Mic company is in order) Also, one of the wires
that goes to the smaller mic was solder-patched by the strain relief -
so basically it appears that someone had butchered this mic from the
beginning and just said, "aw, the hell with it - just ship it!". I guess
that's what ticked me off - someone had seen this mess and still decided
to send it off. I don't know if I'm the only person who has come across
this problem, but I think it's worth addressing this with Heil.
I wonder how many other mic's were shipped this way to new K2 owners,
who might be getting frustrated operating SSB with their K2's. The
problem is that the K2's meter is indicating that your transmitting
(albeit, when speaking loudly). You think the mic is working ok, but
it's not. And the majority of K2 owners probably don't use external
power meters and might not see how little their signal is actually
getting out, or like me, don't know exactly what signal level to expect
on my K2 s-meter. Here I've been holding out for 100watt PA to solve
this problem(which I still will get!), and it's a silly mic problem. I'm
sure a more experieinced builder/operator would have found this problem
sooner, but since I'm new to QRP I didn't know what the effect would be
operating QRP vs QRO.
Anyway, I'd keep a close eye on Heil. You guys do a great job with
everything under your control, and it's a shame that one of your
important suppliers doesn't take that same pride in their products. I'd
like to send back the MH2 and try my luck with another one(at least one
more time). Are there any specific instructions?
Thanks as always!
Paul Hendershott KB9YVP #2278