I bought my Elecraft KX2 as a bundle which should have included also an external microphone, the Elecraft MH3. Unfortunately, Elecraft is not able to deliver this microphone for several months now, so I was looking for a replacement.
It seems that there are no real replacement microphones for the MH3 on the market. I found the AlexMic, which can also no longer be delivered and a Heil microphone with an adapter for the KX2 which is offered by Lutz Electronics in Switzerland, but this is really expensive.
By accident, I did find an instruction by Richard (2M0NEG) how to change a Retevis microphone to work together with the KX2. The Retevis microphone itself looks identical to the Elecraft MH3, although I am not sure if it is also technically identical.
However, it is working fine for me. I am only using the PTT button, the up/down buttons are NOT working (I did not try if it can be used somehow, as I do not neeed it).
Here are the links to the
and the
which I used. The wire colors of the microphone have changed compared to Richard’s instructions:
| Mic+ (Tip) | Red |
| Ground (Sleeve) | Black |
| PTT logic ground (Ring 2) | Green |
| PTT (Ring 1) | Pink |
| <unused> | White |
In the Elecraft KX2 configuration I set “MICBIAS” to “ON” and “MIC BIN” to “PTT”.
The total cost was under 30 EUR, which is much cheaper than the original mic or the Heil microphone and it does work pretty well for me.
By the way, in addition to the external microphone, I am also using this Sennheiser headset which does also work very well with the KX2.