[Elecraft] RIBBON MICROPHONE

[Fred Jensen]

Indeed.  Being just a tad more naive than Jim, a condition that persists 
to this day, my first college job included sign-on in early AM as the 
only employee in the studio of a small FM station.  I used a fairly 
large and clunky RCA ribbon mic on a desk stand in front of the board. 
Everyone has seen them in old movies and the like, sort of prismatic in 
shape.  I made a number of airchecks of the sign-on litany and 
discovered that if I closed way up on the mic and spoke softly, I could 
turn a 17-yr old voice into something a couple of octaves below Vaughn 
Monroe.  It would have been a very poor mic for ham radio.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2011 Cal QSO Party 1-2 Oct 2011
- www.cqp.org

On 8/14/2011 11:48 AM, Jim Brown wrote:
> I wouldn't dream
> of using them in my ham station.  They are delicate (easily broken),
> very subject to P-popping and breathe noise, and emphasize the low end
> of the voice (very bad for ham radio).