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Reviews For: Icom HM-36

Category: Microphones for ham radio

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Review Summary For : Icom HM-36
Reviews: 14MSRP: 74.95
Description:
Hand Mic with IC-7200
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00143.9
EI6ITB Rating: 2021-04-26
Junk cheapy Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently purchased an Icom 735 and it came with this dreadful cheap piece of junk mike. It wouldn't drive the set much and attempting to make it so would only result in horrible distortion and clipping.
I plugged in the HM-7 that had come with my 725 and things worked as they should. Until that point I'd started to wonder if I needed to pull the covers of the 735 and look for faults.
With the HM-7 it sounds great and the full power is being sent out without a trace of distortion.
I tried to find another HM-7, but they seem in short supply, so I've landed a genuine HM-12 as a spare to see how that goes.
The market is flooded with cheap copies of the HM-36, but given my experience with the one I have, I'll be avoiding all of those.

The HM-12 works excellently, and the cheap&nasty HM-36 is residing in the junk box.
VK3TEX Rating: 2019-09-08
Great Mic Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Picked up a 5 dollar bargain Japanese HM-36 at a local Hamfest which was missing the foster plug and bit ratty cable.
Repaired with a new plug and cleaned up now looks and works fantastic.
This Japanese version is probably the best ICOM hand mic ever made in my opinion.
Works fantastic with fine audio.
N5FPO Rating: 2018-10-20
Needed a simple mod to fix it. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Having read many reviews of the Icom 7200, and knowing the poor reputation of the HM-36 microphone, I still wanted the radio for field use and assumed the mic. would need to be replaced with a better unit. And upon receiving the radio I was not surprised to find that the mic. sounded awful. But before laying out cash for a new mic. or heating up the soldering iron to perform the useless "Youtube mods", I decided to carefully inspect the mic., and what I found surprised me: The factory had installed a "pop" filter inside the electret mic. housing, I used a small pair of tweezers and carefully removed this oversized piece of gray foam. It turned out that it was a round ball of foam almost 3/8 of an inch in diameter and it was stuffed inside the electret quite tightly. I reassembled the mic. and tried it out and the difference was like night and day. My voice suddenly sounded bright and natural with plenty of punch. I wondered if it had been pressing against the microphone element preventing its movement, which would cause the typical HM-36 dull, lifeless sounding performance. But compressing that much foam inside the tiny 1/4 inch microphone opening would also surely cause the same problem, because compressed foam isn't acoustically transparent. My field radio now sounds great. The mic. is rugged, it doesn't squeak or crackle & groan from being squeezed in the hand, and it sounds very good. I hope this turns out to be the case for you as well. Just remember: there is almost 9VDC on the microphone audio pin (#1), and without installing a 1uF non-polarized cap. in series with a dynamic mic. element you will almost certainly burn out the mic. element voice coil. Good luck & 73
WU3D Rating: 2018-04-08
awesome Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This made in Japan version hand mic drives my 756 Pro like there's no tomorrow ! And the accolades my audio gets is fantastic.
Great mic !
G4VRR Rating: 2018-03-02
Poor Quality Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This is a review of the Chinese variant of the microphone rather than the earlier Japanese model. I found that following online hints to crank the microphone gain and max out the speech processor on my ICOM IC-7200, I still couldn't manage to drive the ALC sufficiently, even using close mic technique.

I dismantled the hapless item with a view to performing any one of the various modifications that have been documented on the internet. I was shocked at the shoddy array of cheap plastic tat that collapsed on the bench before my eyes. Icom hang your collective heads in shame for including this junk with your high quality equipment. I purchased a second user Japanese HM36 from eBay and it was immediately obvious that ICOM's value engineering was a pointless exercise. The Japanese microphone completely trounces the bean counting Chinese afterthought both in fjnction and in tactile quality. If it had functioned as it was no doubt intended to do, I would have retained an open mind. Instead, I filed it under "B" for "Bin".
PA3GEG Rating: 2017-12-07
HM 36 china great Mike Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I am using a China HM 36 now since oktober 2015 from a new Icom 7600 ( had to wait for it because it was on its way from Icom Company to Europe). I Always had good reports with my MD 200 yaesu with ft 2000 but switching over to Icom 7600 with the HM 36 my reports were, super , superb, amazing BBC quality ( what ever that means). I did not a lot changing settings only put treble and base to 4. I like to work with a deskmike, but I did not try it because I am afraid losing this good reports. Great Mike some videos are on you tube of guys who have recorded me. if you like to look them up, look after date oktober 2015 previous mike was FT2000 with MD200. EXAMPLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAqxbovIGX0
KB4VVE Rating: 2014-11-14
Simple fix for Chinese HM-36 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I got the Chinese mic with my IC-7200 and it did not sound good. The Japanese version from my IC-746Pro worked fine on the IC-7200.
Digging into the mics show that the Japanese version used a three lead element with the power being separate. The Chinese version (newer) uses a two lead element.
The Mic line is powered thru a 1 K resistor in the IC-7200 and there is a 27K resistor inline with a .22uf cap in parrallel (page 11 in Op Manual).
Too low a voltage getting to the element. Changed the 27K to a 4.7K and the mic came alive.
$0.03 and all fixed. Sounds great, tons of level, good clarity. Everything else is now controlled thru the DSP with fine results.
Dumb move by somebody, though on an otherwise great radio.
Greg Bunting, KB4VVE
K7JQ Rating: 2014-11-14
Good reports Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I got the Chinese version with my IC-7600. I use the Heil PR-781 normally, and a Heil Pro Set Elite 6 for contests. The HM-36 was in its box for over a year, and one day decided to try it out. Well, in A-B tests with the PR-781, most folks could hardly tell the difference, with some actually preferring the HM-36! Go figure.
W2DI Rating: 2014-11-14
China version works for me Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently purchased an IC-718. I received the HM-36 (China). Using it for several contacts and asking about the audio, the replies were all good.
I then ran some A-B tests with the HM-36, a 600ohm dynamic 'shack' mic (a small size microphone) and the Heil Pro Elite headset, with the HM-6 element.
In both cases the HM-36, was the preferred mic, being clearer and crisper than the other units.
In fairness to the Heil which was called 'mushy,' the #6 element is designed to articulate more lows, but the '718 does not have an equalizer to tailor the audio to the best sound..
Everything was with the compressor on..
My next step is to use a much larger dynamic mic, the RS 3303043, 600ohm mic on a desk stand. I think its flat response and 600ohm impedance, that matches the 718 audio mic input, will work well. But we'll see.
In any case, the HM-36, China version has not been criticized in any way, for me.
Also, I recently removed some of the foam that was stuffed into the element hole and replaced it with about 1/4 of the amount. I don't know if this improved anything or not.
While taking the mic apart, I was surprised at the seemingly good build quality.
Thanks for reading.
G3RCE Rating: 2014-11-14
Japanese HM36 is very good Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Yes
the Japanese version is as good as my SM-20 and more convenient!
Shame about all the useless Chinese copies!