Astatic D-104 Microphone Update For Collins and Other Vintage Transmitter Equipment

Update - 9/10/2019 - I got in a "new" T-UG8 base with the volume control and battery holder built into the base that made it very easy to make this old jewel of a microphone head and stand perform so much better with a new, inexpensive, electret condenser microphone. If you are wanting to do this to your D-104 first take a look at the correct wiring of the microphone in the link below and reference the schematic on the right hand side -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electre...
After understanding that schematic you will need to reference the schematic of your actual UG8 base (there are several versions and the schematic is often times pasted on the inside bottom of the microphone stand) and wire it so that when the PTT bar is pressed, the 9V battery is connected across the microphone and resistor and then add the capacitor in series with the microphone output line. It is really a very simple upgrade and you won't have to hope to get a good original D-104 ceramic/crystal microphone element. There are a few good ones left but it is pure luck if you get a good one, so really no need in trying for an good quality original (50+ year old) element. 73 and thanks for watching.

((I recently bought an amplified electret (condenser type) microphone to replace some very poorly performing original Astatic D-104 microphone elements but the instructions did not come with plans for using the new microphone element with older equipment like my Collins S-Line. This video is just to show the principle of how the replacement works so that the user can figure out how to best use it in their application.)) 73 WA4QGA