#45 How to get the best microphone for your ham radio shack with Bob Heil

Thanks for your interesting comments Peppe...I didn't know that about Knowles, but it confirms what I was told.
Best regards stay safe....Des

 

Thanks,
Stay safe too.
Best regards Peppe

 

The aroma in this thread is putrid. I'm done.

 

Earlier this year before the Covid-19 lockdown began I called the "Heil Hospital" and spoke to Donna at Heil. Had no problem getting right through. I sent my headset in based on the call and got it back good as new within a week. I also called the day before the repaired headset was delivered to check on the repair status (I did not realize it was already fixed and on its way back) and got through easily that time too. I hope you get your issue resolved. I can only guess it is somehow related to the Covid-19 crisis.

 

The first few weeks I gave them the benefit of the doubt, I thought perhaps Bob has caught the COVID and effectively shut down the business. Two weeks dragged to three, then four, and now its June with no contact; is there a COVID risk in returning an email or call?

When I saw this interview, basically a marketing infomercial, I blew a gasket. No time to return customers call, but there is time for marketing. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, and felt like the fool after seeing the inteview. The icing on the cake is that one of our fellow QRZ members provided a simple fix to what appears to be a defect in their Icom 10-pin MIC dongle.

Those that have had a good experience with Heil, more power to you, I simply had a different customer experience

 

Bingo.

 

Blame on that one goes to QRZ. When you publish articles called "How to get the best microphone for your ham radio shack with Bob Heil" chances are the brand discussed and content might be a tad (umm Heil centric?). Were any of the competitor's brands discussed, I wonder which brand was described as "best"? I realize that QRZ isn't exactly Consumer Report's, but try not to make the bias so obvious next time.

 

There is a problem with QRZ promoting YouTubers on their main page. I mean, theres enough ads already, I don't need influencers covering the rest of the page. I don't care if these channels exist, but we have become the product for too many of these channels. We need to understand that Amateur Radio isn't the product...our views and subscriptions are the product for targeted advertisers via YT. QRZ is just encouraging and supporting the growth of these brands over the growth of knowledge.

 

Good analysis, hammer stikes nail. They've created a symbiotic financial circle that feeds and benefits everyone except the ham community. QRZ is fed with dollars from advertising, click-through, and referral web traffic, and the YouTubers gain subscriptions and ad-click revenue from the QRZ sourced inbound traffic.

I'm not saying that all Youtubers financial interests exceed that of supporting the community, many work long hours producing quality content with pennies in return. The problem is the good apples fall to the bottom as poor quality click-bait takes over.....
Some examples of low-quality content:
- Biased reviews by those receiving free products from the manufacturers
- Cut and Pasted content from other websites
- Tubers that continually nag to hit the "subscribe" button --- Once is okay, twice for lengthy content
- Interviews with a manufacturer is okay, but not disguised as unbiased consumer advice
- Youtubers selling T-shirts and coffee mugs promoting their channel. Nothing wrong with free enterprise, but if you're merchandising its time to buy advertising and stop masquerading
as home-grown content. Using a tip jar to defray costs of production, ya okay, but outright merchandising, Um no......

 

The video was not posted by QRZ as implied...it was simply posted in the forums by a user - KM9G - who apparently has a YouTube channel.

Nothing wrong with anyone having a YouTube channel and if all are permitted to post their content here in the forums then no one can really say it isn't fair to one or another. If you or I don't like it we are free to ignore it and keep scrolling, it's pretty simple to do so...

 

Open the floodgates...

 

You're turning this into a First Amendment issue?

This is about money, and that's all....

--- If WN1MB posts a video, or even you or I, does it appear as Main Page content? Why not? Because our content doesn't draw enough clicks, or interest, to generate revenue. QRZ determines what goes on the front splash page.

What four types of content are shown on the main page?

1. Paid Advertising
2. Hard News (ie ARRL announces change to such and such)
3. Soft News (Space weather reports, informational bulletins, etc)
4. Pseudo-Content - YouTuber stuff mainly...

- Paid advertising is hard to avoid, QRZ provides mainly free content and requires a steady income stream to keep functioning.
- Hard and Soft news is the bread and butter, its the go-to source for current amateur-radio information
- Pseudo-Content ---- Yes, some of it is interesting and informative, but much of the stuff is dribble with a teaser headline to increase click-through rates.

Not suggesting removing content, just clean up the front page, remove the clickbait and cluttered Hollywood Squares format. Focus on stuff like the Space Weather Reports, reward useful content with more real estate. Keep the Youtubers of course, but (with exceptions) they don't belong on the front splash page.

 

That Knowles microphone element was also manufactured for Racal. Their part number is 2390 TT 489.
You can buy them here for £9:

http://www.sinequanon.co.uk/moving-coil-microphone-capsule-low-impedance.html

 

If one doesn't like the default page layout, which is "grid", they can click "list" - it's located right above the Featured Member box. For my eyes, "list" is far more gentle on the eyes.