I tried two of those in the past few years and found them to be flat in response. I experimented with different hand-held cartridges and finally hit gold. The cartridge from a cheap $9.99 hand mic called a Superstar (workman) mounted in the D-104 head sounds fantastic. Even on a non-amplified stand, it performs extremely well. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
The original crystal cartridge from the 70s sounded great but I broke it some years ago. I got a replacement from the factory but it just never sounded as good. The one I put in is ok, but isn’t quite what I was looking for. Maybe it’s just my ears that have disappointed me. Thanks for the input.
I grabbed the same upgrade kit for a D-104 with a UG8 stand (un-amplified). I agree the kit's instructions have a lot of room for improvement. He even suggested clipping wires to prevent grounding the radio's DC supply, but in a way that kills the VOX capability. There was no need for that. It's trivial to wire it so VOX continues to work perfectly. While it did work just tapping the radio's +5v conductor to the mic line with a resistor, I really didn't like the sound quality. I made a tiny board to go in the base (where the amplifier board goes for amplified mics), and with that I matched impedance to the hand mic that came with the radio (Yaesu FT-991A and MH-31), and also got the signal attenuated so that I don't have to adjust any radio settings when I switch from one mic to another. This way, the factory mic gain settings for the supplied hand held mic also works perfectly with my D-104 and also with my PC headset. Those electret mics are extremely sensitive, so I scraped away the crystal from the round puck in the head, drilled out the two rivets and put the new wires through that from the front so that from the rear of the head, it looks original. For the front, I re-used the original black fabric and the original cotton padding, which prevents pops you could otherwise get. For my setup I originally left the Yaesu's PTT ground and Mic ground separated, but got a hum out of the DS-104. I added a jumper in the base to tie them back together, and that went away. In short, toss the kit instructions, and the mic element is just fair, but with a tiny bit of work it can turn out great. Now I swap mics as I like, and never have to touch the radio menus to adjust mic gain (a pain on my rig).
What you have there is one of the last pot metal casting microphones they made before they quit making them (aka junk). The older D-104's were very good quality, not pot metal, the screws holding it together were real, and the front and rear plates were machined and had a perfect flat mirror refection. Even the Silver Eagle reflection was perfect and did not look like the reflection of a fun-house mirror. Hopefully you saved the original element and didn't crush the foil, they can be repaired. Also, you may have trouble with the contacts not working properly all the time, this is also because the latest versions, like the one you have there used crappy contacts. Sorry to be so negative, but it's the truth. If you like the look of the D-104, find yourself an old one. You can tell if its old by examining it to make sure that the front plate is actually a separate plate that is removable and that the reflection in the back plate is a flawless mirror.
Thanks. I did keep the original element ( actually I had to replace it around 1980 due to over experimenting as a teen). This element came from the Astatic Store, so it’s a keeper. Other than looks, I am not a big fan of the newer ones either.
@@timtimeprojects3576 I didn't meant to hate on you, it's companies that use to make quality products and then go cheap that irritate me. I've had about 100 of these over the last 40 yrs and still have more than 25 of them and I have seen where they came from and how they went south. Anyways, have fum tinkering, that's how we learn.
I just do NOT like the sound or performance of this "upgrade". I have done it before and it sounds as bad in other peoples projects as it did my own. A shame most will yank the wonderful sounding original crystal element without knowing this first. If your doing it because your original element is bad, then I suggest trying something else. The preamp circuit just isn't suited for these electret elements. And you said it... they are REALLY hard to control the volume. Way too fine a line between too low and distorting. Terrible for amateur radio. Thank you for posting this so we can expedience this through your trials.
Try a Philmore LM101S crystal recorder mic element. They are still sold new. I quite like the way it turned out myself. No need for mods on the amp in the base aside from cutting foam etc to hold the smaller element in the head. Just figured I would comment for those that may run across this video. Thank you for posting this!
I have a D104 and bought a different upgrade element from eBay. I have not done the upgrade, yet. The microphone still works great and I have the upgrade kit in the event the original crystal element fails. However, I must note the Kenwood desk microphone sounds wonderful and is a perfect match to the radio. I have a Yaesu and I’m convinced of getting their desk microphone because it should be a good match to the radio.
It’s apparent that we are not hearing the audio output of the rig, but rather just the speaker on the radio through the microphone that’s feeding RU-vid. There’s no way we can understand a comparison that way because we’re also getting the acoustics of the room as well. We’re you aware that this was not feeding the audio input to your RU-vid feed? Of course, we have your word for what it sounded like to you at your QTH but that’s about it. please understand, not criticizing, and we do appreciate all your efforts towards this, but we would really like to hear the results using a line out in line in instead of a microphone held up to a speaker. Lol. Thanks.
I recently did some work on an amplified D104 that had no crystal element. I ended up using a Panasonic WM61A electret and it sounded very good. However, this wasn't without building a new amplifier board for it. I find the existing circuit to be rather inferior. I think it's a poorly designed circuit in the way that they achieve a high impedance input using conventional NPN transistors. The FET circuit they use in their other ceramic power mics is much better suited. You can just go off the D104 M6B schematic and change the 270K ohm resistor on the input for 1M or more.
Couple of things that might help... Maybe not so much foam behind the element. If you fill the space with foam you won’t get much low vocal range. The D104 has a Bandwidth of 50hz to 15k and a distinct rise at 3k that makes the brightness the mic is renowned for. I set my radio’s mic gain all the way up and open the gain the D104 just alittle bit, like an 8th of an inch clockwise. That seems to be a good starting point. Once you get a good setting for AM write it down or mark the mic gain position with a small piece of tape on the felt. Why? because the settings will be different for FM and Sideband. Hope this helps. 👍🏻👍🏻 N8XLQ ✝️🇺🇸
Thanks Lenny. I'll try to remove some of that foam first and see how it sounds. Not using a very scientific approach here. Just going by plain ear technology. My wife is convinced I'm deaf though. At least that project was a success. Just kidding. Thanks again.
Thanks for that, I looked up the spec for a Panasonic insert, and ohms law seems to indicate the resistor should be 18k, planning to try it this week, thanks for the video.
The W2ENY upgrade sounds good. I am about to go thru this same process with a D104 and a Drake TX4B transmitter which is high impedance and tube based transmitter.
I think the mc60 just lacks that drive you have to talk closer to get some good swing.. Although i have a mc80 and i have found it to be the best sounding microphone on my icom 7300. Tje difference between other mics is very noticable and spectacular very loud and punchy on ssb with a quite a bit more bass but not in a way that makes you sound muffled at all Which says alot because the standard mic already sound great on that radio.
I just bought a TS 2000 and it has five pin connector on silver eagle I like to connect it to the 2000. What is the connection to the eight pin connector?
The manual should call that out for you. There are some things you won’t need, like the frequency up and down or phantom power if the mic has a amp and battery.
While it is a nonsense to me to "destroy" a microphone instead to use a different one i mean a crystal cartdridge mike is intended to punch in and not to have a broadcast (kind of) modulation i'm more concerned on the chain mic gain -> speech proc / compressor ( eventually ) so the ALC . Again, using a crystal element to a modern radio is a nonsense : you can't get a good modulation because some things are involved such as the impedance . The crystal element is good on valve ( tubes ) radios ...for modern ones is electret so a cheap 1 buck cost electret cartdrige followed by a simple pre-amp ( again cheap stuff made by e common lm386 or even with five npn transistors ) is good enough . Afterall the SSB filter is 2.4Khz and usually we don't do ragchew on 10m FM repeaters .
Sorry I don’t do much mail in stuff. Things seem to get damaged using that method. This is just a hobby for me but I like to try and show what I’m doing so others can give it a try.
Yes I think the w2eny stuff is over rated. He is getting the elements from DigiKey of Mouser or maybe another source for well under a buck a piece. I am sure if you play with the mic amplifier you can make anything work. Something I learned back in the cb days, is when an mc 320 crystal element would be bad, I would use a dymanic element. The old 1970s cb stock mics had good elements. The coffin shaped mics for example. It is basically making it a 10 da head. Remember astatic sold the 10 da head and it worked on all of their d104 mics. That silver eagle will work on both lo and high z rigs because it has so much gain. I would get heils 5.1 replacement element. I had an hc5 element when they first came out and it worked well. I have used a lot of radios and mic combos over 40+ years. Bang for the buck is the stock mic element. The multi element stuff on eBay is interesting. The price isn't bad I would try that myself, but I don't know how good it works. Good luck. Hope you find that smooth audio your looking for 73
@@arconeagain nope, a dymanic element works well with the stock amplifier in the astatic d104 series mics. If you remember astatic made low Z heads just for their mics. Very universal. Also some operators preferred the flatter response of a low z dynamic over the hi z mc 320 crystal element. The reason I mentioned it is I have done it for years with excellent results, as others have as well. The dynamic low z stock mic elements, ie cb mics etc, work superb as well. 73
@@chrisolson968 the one that I had on the bench recently had a low Z dynamic and it was hopeless. If what you say is correct, it kind of makes sense, the circuit in these is shit. And again, from what you say, it's neither here nor there, so no wonder the performance is often average at best. You can't have both without a compromise, that's a fact. Read my other post if you like, it further explains my point of view.
@@arconeagain The astatic mic is not a hifi mic. You can try to make it one, sure. It is just a communication quality microphone. There are many flaws to the design all around. That buffer amp in the tug8 stand is 1960s technology. The tug9, 1104c, 575 and the mb 106 etc are revised for more modern transceivers. You can't expect a d104 to be hifi without modifying it. As I said you can rework the amp and put any element in it to make it work for different applications. I am not sure of the condition of your low z element, or what you were trying to use the mic for. But for a general purpose communication mic, and a mc 320 bad, a dynamic element of decent quality will work. It also will have plenty of gain. I wouldn't really care for and electrect condenser element in one these unless it was for a dedicated rig that needed some extra help to make the audio sound good. Sorry about your poor results with the low z element you used and however you were using it. Remember a tug8 amplified d104 was 22.95 to 29.95. Cheap communication desk mics. That's why so many were sold. An average sounding d104 blew away an inferior sounding hand mic. 73
@@chrisolson968 I never said anything about HiFi. I did not put the dynamic insert in the microphone. I did a search and US$25 in say 1969 is equivalent to $183.38 today. Cheap you say? It is easy to achieve really good audio with a simple circuit, so why settle for mediocre frequency response, especially when the crystal cartridge has so much more to offer. Are you a Ham? Anyway they stuck with the same shitty circuit for how long, I mean when did they make the Silver Eagle up until? Late 80s, early 90s? That is my point really. This video is about a Silver Eagle right?
Just a quick question, I’ve just brought a silver eagle and I have a issue when keying up, it has a loud crack noise every time I key up through my radio speaker and other radio users can also hear it there end.Have you ever came across or heard of this issue before? Any help would be appreciated.
Hi. If it has the side PTT and the base PTT see if it does it with both. I have s lot of noise when I use the side bar for the PTT. It sounds to me like the Transmit/Receive contacts aren’t shutting off the receive audio fast enough. If only with this mic, see if it has a switch for electronic or relay keying. Then check that the PTT switch inside the mic is working correctly in shutting off the receive audio. Check the mic connector connections at the radio too but i would imagine that would be a constant problem. Good luck!
