As I approach the point when I'm ready to get an HF rig, I thought I'd
get some answers now. One thing that bugs me is to have cables sticking
out very near knobs and buttons. I see on most, if not all, HF rigs the
microphone jack is like that. I would like to tap the microphone jack
lines and run them to a new jack installed on the rear. Is this sort of
thing advisable?

--
David Griffith
--- Put my last name where it belongs

David Griffith wrote:
As I approach the point when I'm ready to get an HF rig, I thought I'd
get some answers now. One thing that bugs me is to have cables sticking
out very near knobs and buttons. I see on most, if not all, HF rigs the
microphone jack is like that. I would like to tap the microphone jack
lines and run them to a new jack installed on the rear. Is this sort of
thing advisable?


Kenwood TS-2000 has two AUX ports on the rear,, Mulit-pin DIN plugs..
ONE of them is normally used for computer interface for digital
communications.

The pins on that port include:
Main audio out (Received audio on the main transceiver)
Sub audio out (You can figure that out)
Microphone in.. A genuine mic-level audio input
PTT.. Just like the one on the front jack but with a twist.

And as I recall a couple of other things. (I'm not looking at the
diagram just now)

The twist: If you ground the front panel PTT jack, or press the SEND
button in an audio mode, then the FRONT audio in (MIC-IN) is selected
and audio at the rear port is ignored.

If you ground the REAR PTT jack.. then audio from the FRONT jack is
ignored and rear input is selected.

Finally... I have no problem with the mic cable sticking out the front..
The only knob truly near it is "Audio Filter low frequency cut off
adjust" and I can do that with HRD or, Usually just leave it at the
minimum (100hz) setting. I do use the high frequency cut off adjust
(One farther right)

You could also make a right angle adapter to point the cable DOWN and
out of the way (or in the case of the TS-2000 off to the left)

On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:41:46 EDT, (David
Griffith) wrote:

As I approach the point when I'm ready to get an HF rig, I thought I'd
get some answers now. One thing that bugs me is to have cables sticking
out very near knobs and buttons. I see on most, if not all, HF rigs the
microphone jack is like that. I would like to tap the microphone jack
lines and run them to a new jack installed on the rear. Is this sort of
thing advisable?

Check the specs on the various radios. Some rigs have back panel jacks
for mike and key as standard equipment. My Icom IC-746 has key jack.
My Icom IC-706MKIIG has a mike and a key jack. Both were purchased new
in the 1999-2001 time frame.

As to modifying a rig to add mike and/or key jacks to the back panel,
that all depends on how much eletronics experience you have. You might
run into stability and/or noise problems running the wires past HF, IF
or digital circuits in the rig. At the very least, you'd void your
warranty.

Dick AC7EL