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Reviews For: Yaesu MH 59A8J remote mic

Category: Microphones for ham radio

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Review Summary For : Yaesu MH 59A8J remote mic
Reviews: 26MSRP: 82.95
Description:
REMOTE CONTROL DTMF MIC FT-857/FT-897
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.hamradio.com/cgi-bin/uncgi/ase?ITEM=mh+59
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
10263.6
OE3SGU Rating: 2006-10-15
Good idea-bad QC Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Bought this Mic for my FT-857D. What a pity - the funcitons are all great, its good on FM but why does it pic RF in SSB on HF? Thats a pain. It could really perform well with all its well thought funtions and possibilties - I prefer this one over the one supplied with my IC-7000 - but its useless on HF. Sold mine after a while.
AD7AS Rating: 2006-08-18
Works For Me Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have this mic on two radios. First let me say that while there is some learning curve for the remote control functions you can do almost anything from the mic that you do from the front panel. This makes operating mobile much more convient than most HF radios I played with. I wouldn't want to be without this feature again.

The audio when you first plug it in is horrible. It is way to hot. Take the time to adjust the mic gains and you will get good audio reports, If you are going to run it mobile keep the gain down a little lower and use it close to your mouth otherwise it will pickup backgrond noise.

I have also found it to be consistent across radios. When I got the second radio I just cloned the settings from the first radio and everything worked.

I have heard of it being more sensitive to RFI but I have not had any issues with mine including operating moble with it about 4 feet from the antenna.

Yaesu should make this the included mic with the 857.
G0UAA Rating: 2006-07-12
SSB FeedbackFfix Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
And away went my 76.00 Hard earned Pounds & i awaited my Brand New DTMF microphone with its all singing & dancing features (Was i in for a shock) SSB audio (if you can call it that) was well the only word i can think of(Shite). A call to Yaesu Tech (Pointless) A call to from wence it came, No problem send it back & back came another new 1 & again as before Audio on SSB ZERO. So in i went a Proddin and touch a Component and Hay Presto PERFECTION. So if Yaesu would like to BUY this mod off me ? Make me an offer (That big shiny new FTDX would be nice) Ps. The FT857D is an Excellant radio & now the MH-59A8J is as it should be, Its functions are also Excellant.
Cheers Ian G0UAA poohma@ntlworld.com
AB2M Rating: 2005-09-27
Working for me so far.. Did I get the only good copy? Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
With some degree of anxiety after reading the first review of this mic here on Eham, I decided to roll the dice and order it. I have found nothing to dislike about this mic yet. Contacts I made with it today indicated excellent audio, even when pressed for honesty and given the reason why. The keys have a small learning curve, but I am already very happy with the mic. I will update this review if that changes over time.
AB0O Rating: 2005-09-27
Disappointing audio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought the mic as an upgrade for my 857D and have tried numerous adjustments without success. Regardless of mode, the mic exhibits two objectionable characteristics...first, it is clearly too "hot" for this radio so no amount of turndown on gain or processing will eliminate the "puff & crackle" it generates, second, the frequency response is horribly pushed to the high end, sounding tinny.
The remote mic functions operate well, but the mic element makes this microphone a very poor choice. Someone could replace the element, I suppose, but there is little room in the housing to do so. After a year, I've gone back to the stock dynamic mic that came with the radio.
WB1AEX Rating: 2005-05-07
Restricted audio but functional Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased this mic to use with my FT-897D to make it possible to do direct frequency entry with the keypad. The mic functions well for this task, and all other programming and radio control tasks work flawlessly, but the transmitted audio from this mic is very restricted. The frequency response clearly favors the mid-range spectrum with very little low end response evident. Audio reports indicate that it sounds very thin. The FT-897D has excellent transmit audio when used with a full frequency microphone, so it was quite disappointing to find that this mic restricts the audio so severely. The components inside are surface mount so it does not lend itself to user tinkering with cap and resistor values. I have not swapped out the electret element yet, but I intend to start with that, then if necessary, I will lift the audio lead at the connector end of the mic circuit board and bypass the stock audio shaping network. Shouldn't be a big deal to make it pleasant sounding, but really, why would Yaesu make such a horrible sounding mic to use with their great sounding transceivers?

Rob, WB1AEX