Low Audio

[jagco]

This isn't really an antenna question, although we did put up a dual band j-pole, today. I've had my Yaesu FT-5100 sitting out in the garage (on bench) for a few years. We hooked it up to the antenna, today, and I'm told I have almost no audio. My SWR and wattage read fine on the meter and they said I have a great signal, just very little audio. Any ideas what the problem might be?

[N7OQ]

I'd change microphones and see if that helps.

[Radio]

Moved to Black Box Forum

Old fashioned carbon mics would sometimes get low output, and the ops would bang them sharply on the radio table to knock the carbon particles loose again.

It can only be one of two things...the radio or the mic. As Bill suggested, try another mic. Or take the mic apart and see whats loose or dirty. Maybe a spider moved in there and made a nest on your element!!

Radio

[jagco]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I don't have a mic wired for Yaesu, at the moment, so I just installed a different radio. I will just have to do without UHF for the time being. I can check around and see if anybody has a mic wired for Yaesu.

Thanks. 73
Jeff

[wa8yxm]

What do you have wired for you Yesau? If your computer sound card is wired in you can use it as your MIC. T/R is a bit tricky but you can write a fairly easy program to do that and if your computer has the ability you can taylor your audio rather well on the side.

Also, I have a couple mics wired for Yesau, only it's for the FT-51R, and I don't think that's what you need

[jagco]

I don't have a mic, of any sort, for the computer. I would like to get one, so I can try out Echolink, though. We have a hamfest coming up this month. Maybe I can find a mic for the Yaesu and one for the computer, to.

[N7OQ]

Originally Posted by jagco

I don't have a mic, of any sort, for the computer. I would like to get one, so I can try out Echolink, though. We have a hamfest coming up this month. Maybe I can find a mic for the Yaesu and one for the computer, to.

I tried a mic I had for echolink and the audio was to low so I bought a computer mic/headset and the audio was still to low so I was going to make a preamp when it hit me I have Bluetooth in my Laptop and I had a bluetooth headset for my Cell phone so I tried it with the computer. The computer found it as a audio device so I loaded Echolink and it worked like a champ much better audio, I now have to turn down the gain and I'm able to receive the audio back from the computer. So I can do Echolink with out the wires, able to move around the shack and stay connected.