It used to sit in the corner of my desk, my Kenwood MC-60 microphone. Although it has a suburb audio it also has so much RFI which makes it useless. On my to-do-list: search the internet to fix this problem so I can use this nice mike.
Finally I found the easiest fix there is for the RFI-problem with the Kenwood MC-60! Open up the bottom plate and just solder a 10NF capacitor between the blue wire and on the connector which connects to the rig (see picture). And done you are! No more RFI. If only I had knew this issue was so easy to fix, I could have start use the MC-60 a long time ago!
PA8E
Dutch Radio Amateur Station
Hoi Jim, die blauwe draad….waar dient die voor. Audio ? In dat geval….veranderd je modulatie dan niet? Leuke blog, zie dat je hem al een tijdje niet hebt bijgewerkt. Tot horens….73, Bas
Hoi Bas, nee modulatie verandert niet. Het is enkel een ontkoppel condensator. Daarmee ontkoppel je HF signalen, maar LF-signalen merken daar niks van.
Sorry, zat verkeer te kijken. Zie nu ook de nieuwere berichten. Ik ga deze blog zeer volgen ;-), Bas
Ok Jim, bedankt. Ik heb nog een Turner SSK met hetzelfde probleem. Ga dit eens proberen. Misschien dat ik die mike dan ook eens kan gebruiken. Gek genoeg heeft mijn Turner +3B er totaal geen last van. 73, Bas
Hi i wonder if this the same problim i have with the mc60 and my ts570d.the problem i have is bad audio some times,when i use my Shure 444 i have no problem.Your advie on this would be very helpful. Many thanks.Bill GoTBS.
Hi William, it could be the same problem for sure. You can test it; turn down your power as low as possible and put the set away from the antenna as far as possible. When the modulation gets better, its the same problem. Good luck and 73! Jim
Hi William, it’s very well possible thats the same problem. Audio sounds very distorted and weak when you have this problem. Also it’s not constant. In my case when it was raining outside the problem became worse. Probably something to do with the radiation pattern of the antenna. Just try it, it isn’t hard to implement.
Good luck!
Hi Jim many thanks for replying to my email,it seems that i have the same problem as you have had so i will give it a go and let you know how i get on.Once again many many thanks.Regards Bill
Hi Jim many thanks for the info regarding mc60 mike copied what you recommended my mc60 is now working fine thanks to you. thanks Bill.
Dankzij jou kon ik een andere amateur helpen. Bedankt!
Hans
Hans, top! You’re welcome!
Jim ,
you made my day. Bought a TS570D and the MC60 and a lot of bad audio reports “thanks too” RFI. Gonna put the C and it must be OK.
Thanks,
Herman ON5ABS (PA3ABS) Ouwe Ollander
Hi Herman,
glad I could help! I hope the mod will fix your RFI-problems. Good luck and hope to meet you on the air.
73, Jim
Great – this worked for me! I suffered from RF feedback on 40m with the TS-590 (but only when the base unit was connected and not when the microphone was directly connected to the rig). Attempts to use various ferrite chokes and additional earthing proved unsuccessful but Jim’s modification seems to work OK (at least with the microphone pre-amplifier switched off). Unfortunately, when the microphone pre-amplifier is switched on, the feedback still remains but I don’t think that the pre-amplifier is something that is really necessary for normal ‘phone contacts. Thanks for the information – it’s a real shame that Kenwood have not got to grips with this problem – the MC-60 seems to be an excellent bit of kit in most other respects!
I’m curious, why did Kenwood put a pre-amp on the mic and make it a dual impedance, my way of thinking was to make it universal desk mike……. why would one need a pre-amp on modern rigs and run it on 50K setting?
I can only think of line inputs on tape recorders and amplifiers is the reason, surely we don’t want to be running the mic. on 50K on a rig with an input of 500, nor do we want go boosting the op some 10db on modern rigs especially – whats the reason Kenwood?
David, you can hardly call it a pre-amp. It’s more like a line-amp. That is the main reason why I don’t use the mic a lot. You still have to talk in to it from about 5 cm away. On my planning: build a real pre-amp into it so I can use it for real desktop use.
Did this mod and there was absolutely no change. There seem to be a range of internet mods for this microphone but for now it remains a useless piece of junk cluttering up the station desk. Shame really as Kenwood should have addressed this issue a long time ago. Other mics seem to be ok, why just the MC60A?