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President Electret Microphone Upgrade

Shadetree Mechanic

Shadetree Mechanic

Delaware Base Station 808
Oct 23, 2017
7,242
12,689
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The First State (Delaware)
The stock electret microphone that comes with the President radios now days is hard to beat. Changing to a dynamic mic will usually give a lower tone that sounds good, but it lacks the punch of the stock mic and consequently is not as loud. A power mic will bring up the audio level, making the dynamic element loud enough. But the punch is still gone.

There is a seller on ebay that sells a multiple element retro fit kit for the D104. Just put all the elements in parallel, giving more gain. And I just happened to have a hand full of the small electret elements that came from telephone handsets that were in the recycle at work........

Behold, three elements wrapped in tape to make a snug fit. Plus the stock element makes four.

Wow! What a difference it makes! Big clean clear audio, better than any power mic. Seriously, you gotta try it.

IMG_20230504_175151960_HDR.jpg
 
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Just a note, the electret elements that you normally buy will probably have too much bass. The studio type elements need an equalizer to make them sound natural. The dc blocking cap that is sometimes needed will trim some of the bass, but it also attenuates the signal.

The elements that I have been using come from telephone / speaker phone applications and have a great frequency response with a natural sound. Now that I found this out, I need to go back to some of the other mics that I did and fix them.
 
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I'm going to try this this evening with my President Stock Mic. There was a few old telephone handsets in the junk closet at my office, boss said to throw them out, so I'm taking them home to dissect and rob the elements out of them. :)
 
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Since the radio is bottlenecking audio bandwidth, no matter what mic cartridge you use, radio will cut it down. Those telephone mic capsules are just regular electret microphones.
Mike
 
sp5it said:
Since the radio is bottlenecking audio bandwidth, no matter what mic cartridge you use, radio will cut it down. Those telephone mic capsules are just regular electret microphones.
Mike
Click to expand...
Sure, the radio cuts down the bandwidth, but the microphone cuts it more. I thought the telephone capsules were just ordinary capsules too. So I bought a pack of 10 elements from Amazon and quickly found out that they are not the same. An ordinary element has too much bass and sounds muddy. It needs an equalizer. The telephone element has the bass attenuated, but not as much as the Anytone or President ones. The telephone people want you to sound like you. This is what the radio people should want too.
 
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KK4JW said:
I'm going to try this this evening with my President Stock Mic. There was a few old telephone handsets in the junk closet at my office, boss said to throw them out, so I'm taking them home to dissect and rob the elements out of them. :)
Click to expand...
The best way to hear the difference, is to use a second radio with headphones and no antenna. I use a stock Cobra 148 as a station monitor. I do a quick check every time I power up, just to make sure nothing got bumped, etc. I thought about putting an extra push button on the mic to switch in and out the extra elements. Would make A/B testing simple. Let us know what you think, and even snap a few pictures if you can.
Chris
 
Prelim testing yields good results with what seems to be a little better "low end" response. I have two President mics that I can use on the Lincoln II. One remains stock, the other is the modified one with two additional elements. There certainly IS an audio difference between the two.

I am impressed.
 
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Just did one for the Anytone Ares 2.

Anytone Ares 2

The audio on the Ares 2 sounds great, but I think I hear a little something. Maybe others can confirm, I think the TX has a slight reverb sound. With the echo and TX noise reduction off, I hear a slight reverb in my monitor radio. Nothing bad, probably cant hear it on the other end, just...
www.worldwidedx.com www.worldwidedx.com
 
I have a anytone at-6666 or quad 6 an all out great transceiver as all anytones are I think but the carrier output power with the rf power turned all the way down it's dead key is about 15 watts average.
Can I turn this carrier down by adjusting AM PL on the inside of the radio ? And will the AM PL only affect the output power when it's turned down while the AM PH adjust the output when the rf power is turned all the way up ?.
I know on the quad 5 plus the AM power high and power low adjustments are in the service menu and that's how those adjustments affected the output watts and hope it's the same with the quad 6 at-6666.
Please and thank you
 
Squints said:
I have a anytone at-6666 or quad 6 an all out great transceiver as all anytones are I think but the carrier output power with the rf power turned all the way down it's dead key is about 15 watts average.
Can I turn this carrier down by adjusting AM PL on the inside of the radio ? And will the AM PL only affect the output power when it's turned down while the AM PH adjust the output when the rf power is turned all the way up ?.
I know on the quad 5 plus the AM power high and power low adjustments are in the service menu and that's how those adjustments affected the output watts and hope it's the same with the quad 6 at-6666.
Please and thank you
Click to expand...
AMPL should adjust the power level when the knob is turned all the way down. I believe it adjusts the carrier as well as peak output.
 

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