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Yaesu FT-857D with Astatic hand mics

S

SR385

Active Member
Mar 9, 2007
794
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Figured I'll drop this in here.

I've always got muddy audio reports with my FT-857D on FM in particular. For SSB you can change the carrier offset to compensate for this and sharpen it up, but FM doesn't give you any real adjustments.

I decided to try two of my old 11m mics I had kicking around.

Astatic D104 M6
Astatic Road Devil

The Road Devil...might be broken. I got o.k. audio reports but with any CB I ran the mic gain lever at the bottom 1/3 point, with the Yaesu, I have to run the rig at 100 for FM mic gain and the mic at 2/3 gain. I changed the battery, but I still suspect something is wrong. This would be ideal as I have a Jeep Wrangler and always preferred a noise canceling mic for loud trucks.

If anyone has run the Road Devil with the Yaesu, I'd be very curious what your gain settings for mic and rig are. Specifically for FM.

D104 M6. This one got overwhelming great audio reports from the group I was testing with. They said it sounded like a whole new radio. Basically it adds a lot more definition to the audio, crisps it up and takes the low mid 'mud' out of the audio that the stock mic has.

This is where I suspected the Road Devil as being broken. The gain for the D104 M6 was very hot as I expected both of these mics to be. I run the mic at '2' and the rig at 25 for FM mic gain. The audio reports were that I was very loud, but perfectly clear and not talking out of the repeater's squelch circuit. This gain staging will cut down on the background noise as much as possible and boost the input audio at the rig after it's passed the mic.

Very pleased to finally have excellent audio reports for FM repeater use as I use this mode pretty frequently while driving around.
 

Yeah I had to wire a CAT5 network cable as the connector on the end of it. I had a spare kicking around and just clipped 4" or so on the end as a pigtail and soldered and heatshrunk it up.

Newer HF rigs aren't 'loud' on AM in the sense of a clipped or peaked and tuned CB rig, but the 857 is halfway decent on AM. The D104 made a nice diff on SSB but I haven't really had a chance to check it out on AM...I'm sure it helps there too though.

Key with HF rigs and AM is to not use the speech processor at all and strike a balance with your modulation/mic gain and the power output you have the carrier set to. Just remember that '100W' radios are really 40W or so for AM. Don't try cranking them for the last possible watt or your signal quality will suffer.
 
ya the road devil will work in a mobile situation
remember keep the gain on the mic itself down as
this provides best nose cancelling from the mic.
so to achieve best audio youll most likely need to run
the mike gain on radio up most of the way if not all the
way.the d104 m6b is has a higherr gain than the roaddevil
but would most likely pick up alot more noise.choise is yours
but those are facts remember what ever mic ya choose
keep the mic itself turned down low.2 the the d104 is fine
and just barely on to all the way DOWN on the road devil is
how i run mine with great audio reports.use more mic gain from
radio if needed
 
There is a moral to my story here....

The quality of the D104M6 stands with my 857, it works great, however and no small mistake, I had my drive levels too high even after having lowered them.

I misunderstood the ALC readings.

See this for the story.

http://forum.worldwidedx.com/viewtopic.php?p=119169

In a nutshell, be sure you are setting up for proper ALC indication and these mics are quite hot and will require lowering the mic gain on the rig for sure.
 
EDUK8TR friends have had me wire a few 575's for the 706 in the past, i made a rj to regular inline socket cable adaptor,
on fm they add punch and clarity better than the flat sounding stock icom mic,
the later 104m6b uses the same cartridge and amplifier circuit without the tone controll resistor, add a variable and the normally tinny sounding 104 can sound respectable on a wider range of radios and modes.
 

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