[Elecraft] K2 Mic wiring problems

[Rolf Moberg, OH6KXL]

Uuh! This is going to be hard!

After completing ssb kit to K2 I decided to wire mics for K2. I have two 
mic connectors, one for Heil headset adapter cable and another to be 
used in Yaesu MH31 mic from FT857/817/897.

I decided to wire MH31 first. There was a RJ45 connector in cable. 
Through the plastic you can see the colours and from the manual of ft897 
you can check the proper wiring. I counted 8 colourful cables inside of 
RJ45. (Two blacks!)

I cut RJ45 off and found a lot of cotton inside the mic cable. And lot 
of bare, very thin copper wires. After cutting them off I counted the 
cables. What? There are only seven colourful cables in the mic cable. I 
think Yaesu has covered some bare copper wires with one extra black coating.

All the little cables are unusable. They are _very_ hard to strip. The 
copper inside the coating is very very thin and it breaks all the time. 
Almost half of the smaller cables are cotton! Cotton is twisted together 
with three or four very thin copper wires.

After several tries I raised my hands. I gave up. I will not even think 
about soldering those thin wires to mic connector.

After building a K2, installing hundreds of components, soldering 
thousands of joints I couldn't install a microphone cable to mic 
connector. Maybe you don't believe me. Try it!

I'll make home made Heil adapter (Kenwood version) tomorrow. It's going 
to be a lot easier job.

Rolf Moberg
oh6kxl