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Reviews For: Heil HandiMic Series (new for 2004)

Category: Microphones for ham radio

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Review Summary For : Heil HandiMic Series (new for 2004)
Reviews: 35MSRP: 80+cable
Description:
Only 4" tall - a new standard for hand mics!
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.heilsound.com/amateur/handi_mic.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00354.4
K9XT Rating: 2007-12-15
HM-IC Great for IC-7000 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought an HandiMic IC (HM-IC) for use with an Icom IC-7000. The mike element works perfectly with the radio and audio reports are very complimentary with TBW set in wide or mid. VOX operation is satisfactory. The bottom line: A good investment.
N4JA Rating: 2007-11-05
He stands behind his products Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I wrote a review previously about the push-to-talk button hanging up in the transmit position on an intermittent basis. Someone sent the review to Bob Heil and even though I had had the mike over a year, he had me to send the mike to him for repair. I did! He did! and the mile workks perfectly now. I notice the Push-to-talk button is not as hard to push as the original button. My thumb would get sore when I used the mike with the old button. It's now easy to push and it doesn't hang up in transmit now. Good to have an American product that the manufacturer stands behind.

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Earlier 2-star review posted by N4JA on 2007-10-18

The push to talk switch sticks on my handi-mike. It is impossible to use dispite pouring alcohol in the switch and later trying WD-40. After trying both cures, the mike works fine for awhile then it starts sticking in the transmit mode. I have had to put it in the drawer and consider it a bad investment. I won't try to sell it, because it would be sticking it to some other poor ham.
K5PSO Rating: 2007-10-27
Fabulous Time Owned: more than 12 months.
A noticiable improvement in pile-up situations, this mic provides better articulation. I also have another cable which plugs into my laptop for Echolink. Works great there too. A winner!
K6USN Rating: 2007-04-13
Thumbs up! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Okay, I thought at first the HandiMike was a silly rendition of a tape recorder microphone and didn't look like ham gear. I've changed my opinion after a hands on try at HRO in Oakland.

I wanted a microphone for my IC 7000 that would also work with my PRO III. Was looking for something small and light, with the time proven
HC4/5 elements Heil is renowned for. The color schemes of the Gold Line or the HM-10 was not to my taste.

The HandiMike fits the bill! In fact, I bought three!(HM4,HM5 and Pro) I use them on a small desk stand when at home, and clip them to the rig when operating portable.

Extremely well constructed - solid feel, balance and weight. Not your plastic hand held mike at all! The audio is superb, as is to be expected from the time tested microphone elements utilized.

I also like the fact that they are the traditional black matte and match my Icom radios.

I will never go back to a stock 'clamshell' mike again.

Allen
K6USN (ZK1USN)
W2DIP Rating: 2007-04-11
Great for the Icom 7000 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
For those of you who have Icom 7000's, I have two, you know that the audio is enemic at best using the unmodified hand mic. I have heard myself and many other 7000 owners and they all have the tell tale hollow sound with no range. I always get my mics modified by Bob Nagy who does a great job at a reasonable price but I wanted something that I could both use with my boom/desk stand and hand. Ofcourse, the biggest problem is not having use of the keypad on the hand mic. I find myself switching back and forth. For some reason Icom's manual tells you emphatically not to hook two mics up at the same time. I am wondering if that is because of the danger of transmitting on both mics at the same time (a difficult feat at best) or for some other reason. I thought that the abilityt to plug both mics in would give me the best of both worlds but I have to check further.

BTW, if you take the supplied hand mic apart, at your own risk, you will notice that the mic element in not behind the hole in the shell which contributes to the hollow sound since in effect you are talking into a boxed in enclosure forcing the sound to bounce around before it gets to the mic element. The use of Japanese cell phone mic elements designed for the Japanese voice also does not help matters (in all fairness to Icom, they did switch their frequency response to the generic 'International setting'). Every 7000 owner in my neck of the woods either has their mic modified or uses some other means to improve their audio. Despite this however, many 7000 owners who leave comments on the web report no problem. I have heard about 8 7000 rigs so far and they all share the same audio problem so I am baffled at this. One explanation is that the poor audio is most noticable on FM simplex. It is not bad on repeaters or SSB. I know lots of hams who never or seldom talk on FM simplex so perhaps that is one explanation why more people are not up in arms over this. Another explanation is that the problem is voice dependant and for some voices it works well and with others, like my deep monotone voice, does not.
KI4CRA Rating: 2007-02-25
Outstanding Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had my Heil HandiMic for going on 2 years now. Other than the cable being defective and on recall talked with Bob, he thought he had got all the defective cables, evidently I had one of the last ones. Got it replaced ASAP, and no problems, until about 6 months ago.
I would have had the problem corrected back then except that I have both rotator cuffs surgically repaired, and have just in the past couple of weeks addressed the problem. The little black PTT button has been sticking for months now. E mailed Bob and see if we couldn't come up with a solution. Received a solution, tried it twice, didn't make much of a difference. So emailed Heil Sound and I should be getting a replacement PTT button any day now.
It is an excellant mic, and I ahve had many enjoyable contacts withit and hope to be back on the air with it again very soon. 73 all and thank you for reading my post.

Mark AI4HO
KT4NR Rating: 2007-01-26
Good Mic Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought the HM-5 with the adapter cable recently for use with a TS480sat to replace the Kenwood stock mic. I had serious doubts about how I would like a more studio type mic while driving versus the traditional (if you will) boxy style mic. Previously on other HF radios I had come to love the Kenwood MC60 mics for their pleasant sound that was hard to screw up and the D104 for the punch it gave an old Drake TR4cw I had.

The mic has good weight balance and fits in my hand quite naturally. The PTT (or release to listen for some) is a nice rubber button that is neither too hard to push to activate nor so light that it goes off when jostled in the car. The size of the mic is also just right being neither too small or too big for my hands. I can easily and comfortably operate the mic while driving.

There were other reviewers concerned about the lack of a coiled cable. For me this is an advantage due to how I need to run the cable in the car. The coiled mics stretch nicer, but they get tangled up and caught on things easier as well.

I am still playing with radio settings but for my voice running the speech processor and some bass from the 480 gives a nice full sound according to those I have spoken to on SSB. Running with a setting of either 2 or 3 on the FM mic gain on the same radio also gives a nice rich sound from what I am told.

Thanks for a good product Bob.
AB0O Rating: 2005-10-31
Good equipment Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Purchased the HandiMic Pro as a replacement mic for my FT-857D mobile rig. The day after the purchase, the PTT stopped working in the middle of a QSO, but has worked well ever since. (Probably a loose paint speck or plastic shard in the contacts.) Otherwise the audio is flawless and reportedly very pleasant to listen to. Fit and finish is good, with the mic element set in an enclosed inner case.
The only sustained complaint I would have is that the mic cord supplied with the mic is a very heavy cable, with the rather large and ungainly plastic cover for the plug connector. The cord is not coiled and is impossible to straighten out, especially on cold mornings. I would think that a special wide-temperature-range lightweight coiled cord with a more streamlined plug would be a required accessory for this mic.
N7ZM Rating: 2005-10-24
Great small microphone Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Great small microphone. Drives the pants off my Yaesu FT-1000MP Mark-V, better than the MD-200.
Ron N7ZM
AF4KK Rating: 2005-10-05
Works very, very well! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is a good quality microphone with good quality sound. I have an HM-4 and and HM-5 and they both look as good as they work. The only teeny-tiny little problem is when you place the mic in the mobile bracket with the wind screen on, it pushes the foam piece up just enough that it nearly falls of the mic. Otherwise, a fine addition to my Kenwood 480SAT!