Earbone Speaker-Mic
I was browsing the website of one of my favourite radio shops, 409shop.com in Hong Kong. I saw that they sell the ‘earbone‘ microphones for portable radios.
(Click for full size)
These are really quite cool. The speaker-mic looks like a normal in-ear ‘covert’ or ‘security’ earpiece, but there is also a small piezo accelerometer included which translates the vibrations in your skull created by talking into a microphone signal. The result is that there is nothing near your mouth to give away that you are transmitting, but what I was interested in was the noise immunity. Since the mic is using the effect of your voice on your skull, outside noise should have very little impact, which is good for outside use if there are bands playing etc.
The speaker-mics come with a heap of different connectors, but I chose the Kenwood connection as this connects into my Kenwood TH-77 as well as my Puxing PX-777 and Kyd TK-328.
Audio reports were that the audio was easy enough to understand, but a little muffled. That’s a lot better report than I got from a throat mike (which was not complementary to say the least). While you can pay over A$200 for these mics (with a fancier PTT button and more connection options), Mr Chan’s price at around US$20 is hard to beat and worth the punt.
