[Elecraft] K3 Mic Setting for HC4?

[Ed Muns]

> K3 #98 is working well.  Has anyone found the right settings 
> of Mic Gain (Hi/Lo?), Comp, VOX Gain, and VOX delay for the 
> Heil HC4 element?

Search the archives for the post I made following SS Phone on this exact
topic (Subject: K3 in SS Phone) on 19 November 2007.  Here is the paragraph
relevant to your query:

On transmit, I used a Heil headset with the HC4 element that is shaped for
punch in crowded and/or weak signal conditions, rather than hi-fidelity.  I
set the K3 TX equalizer with the bottom three bands (50, 100 and 200) at
-16dB, the 2.4kHz at +2dB and 3.2kHz at +4dB.  Adding more at the high end
is not generally needed with this mic element but my natural voice is
weighted low in frequency so a bit more high emphasis is crisper.
Compression was set to max at 30 and a lot of testing was done at other
settings to determine that no ill effects were heard at the higher settings.
However, signal quality was sensitive to Mic level.  I found that when the
Mic level was increased such that the K3's CMP meter kicked up above 10dB
that clipping of voice peaks occurred.  This is a bit backward from how one
would normally adjust Mic and CMP, but it worked much better to ignore the
ALC meter and just watch CMP when running the compressor wide open.  Mic
level was 15 on the 'L' range for both K3s.

73,
Ed - W0YK