Will,
I too can't stand poor mic designs, so I'm taking matters in my own hands. I had laying around an old CES 640 mic that wasn't being used for anything, soooo. I ripped the guts out of the Kenwood mic, keeping the mic element and pc board and mic cable and discarded the rest with much zeal (read: loved throwing it in the trash can). I opened the CES mic and ripped the guts out of that one too. I got lucky here, the mike element from the Kenwood mic fit perfectly in the CES case. One hoop jumped through. Okay, now on to the PTT lever, oh no, I tossed the Kenwood lever in the trash can! You wouldn't believe the exhilaration of dumpster diving in mid-winter. Okay, have my PTT lever, now to make it fit into the CES case. With some hacking, chopping and cutting, it fit. Now for the grand daddy of kluges: the PC board. I removed the rj45 female socket and started hacking on the board. Half a dozen cuts later, it fit. Fit so well that the PTT even works without sticking. I'm sure at this point some higher being must have been looking over my shoulder, it's the only way that I could have gotten this far. Anyway, I used the Kenwood mic cable also with some modifications to the strain relief at the mic end so that the cord would mate up with the CES mic. I soldered the wires on to the mic's pc board, slapped together the mic clam shells and tested. Just to let everyone know I found a great web site that’ll show almost every mic pin out in the world. It’s:
http://www.firecom.com/2004/pdf/interfa ... 0Guide.pdf
Just view the PDF for your brand of radio and It’ll so the schematic for their interface. Within that interface schematic, they tell you the mic pin outs. NEET STUFF!!!! The mic worked like a charm. It felt good in my hand and it sounds good too.
So I guess there is a silver lining in every dark cloud, you just have to find it.