[Elecraft] Bad Heil mic

[George, W5YR]

Paul, do this:

Box up the mic and include a letter describing your feelings about the mic
and the company. Send it to Bob Heil marked personal. Make a mark on your
calendar. Depending upon how long it takes the mic to reach Bob, add no
more than two hours before you get a phone call from him and add return
shipping time to that before you have a brand new mic delivered to you.

Bob Heil puts out the highest quality product of any electronics
manufacturer that I have seen, and he will do literally anything to make
sure that a customer is pleased with his purchase, regardless of where the
product was purchased.

Give him a chance . . .

72/73/oo, George W5YR - the Yellow Rose of Texas         
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13qe   
Amateur Radio W5YR, in the 56th year and it just keeps getting better!
QRP-L 1373 NETXQRP 6 SOC 262 COG 8 FPQRP 404 TEN-X 11771
Icom IC-756PRO #02121  Kachina #91900556  IC-765 #02437

All outgoing email virus-checked by Norton Anti-Virus 2002


Paul Hendershott wrote:
> 
> 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
>