[Elecraft] K3 Heil Adapter, which one?

[n4lq]

Eric
Eric
Bob Heil needs to be straightened out on this since he's telling people to 
buy the Yaesu adapter. Personally I think there's a market here for a desk 
mic. with Elecraft's name on it.
Steve Ellington
N4LQ at insightbb.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft" <eric at elecraft.com>
To: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 12:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 Heil Adapter, which one?


> I'd like to clarify this point.
>
> Starting with the K2 in 1998, we designed our 'Elecraft Standard' 8 pin 
> microphone connector to be compatible with the Kenwood -Dynamic- 
> microphone pin out that is used on their HF radios, which represents the 
> vast majority of 'Kenwood' style microphones out there. (Especially in 
> 1998.) The other pins referred to below are only used for the electret 
> element versions of the Kenwood microphones, which we intentionally did 
> not design for. We never intended to work on every possible microphone 
> combination used on Kenwood radios.
>
> I think the confusion on this issue arose when people started trying to 
> use microphones that Kenwood sells on its VHF/UHF radios, some of which 
> are of the electret variety and require power/bias on a separate pin. We 
> never intended to be directly pin compatible with those microphones, since 
> we were targeting the HF market. (It is quite easy though to modify the 
> connector pin out on those mics to get the required voltage from the K3.)
>
> It should also be noted that most radio manufacturers have a microphone 
> pin out that is unique to their product line. We broke this mold by 
> picking what we felt was a widely used pin out for dynamic microphones to 
> widen the usability of the K2 and subsequently the K3. This immediately 
> opened up a wide range of mics for immediate use on the K2/K3 (-and- 
> reduced our direct microphone sales).
>
> In any case, to help clarify this in the future, we'll start reworking our 
> K2/K3 documentation to use the phrase 'generally pin compatible with 
> Kenwood -dynamic- microphone pin outs.' ;-)
>
> 73, Eric   WA6HHQ
> ----
> P.S. Yes, the 'Kenwood' Heil adapter is the correct one to use with their 
> microphones and our rigs.
>
>
> Charles Harpole wrote:
>> Elecraft K3 front mic socket (8 pin) is basically Kenwood standard, but
>> Elecraft forgot to check the full pin-out and mistakenly reversed two
>> pins that are used only on Kenwood hand mics and others not usually in 
>> the HF ham shack.  Do beware of this fact.  Altho it does not affect the 
>> Heil Kenwood adapter.
>>
>> Charles Harpole
>> k4vud at hotmail.com
>>
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