Several times a month I take part in the UKAC VHF contests on 6 and 2 meters. One of the problems I faced was that after a few minutes of calling CQ if the band was quiet, my voice was starting to get tired and croaky. I had thought about using a voice keyer, but it means extra kit to carry and provide power for when operating portable.
I recently heard about a modification you can make to the stock Yaesu microphone, by replacing the circuit board with a new one containing both a voice keyer as well as a speech compressor. This had to be checked out at once!
I ordered the “Sprach-Sendespeicher, Austauschplatine für Mikro MH31, Bausatz” (quite a mouthfull in any language) from www.box73.de. A word of advice here – Google Translate is your friend!
Now, be warned. This is a kit of parts to assemble, not the finished product. However, the surface mount part is already soldered to the PCB. All you have to do is add the conventional components and some link wires.
Fortunately for me, MyGoodLadyWife loves to do soldering, so she was more than happy to assemble the kit when it arrived. (Lucky me!)
Here’s how the finished item looks, ready for final fitting in to a new microphone housing I bought along with the kit.
