Could my CC-1-XLR-Y-Bal be defective

Delbert McCord

Most times I find I have missed something but I "think" I have a defective cable. 
I purchased the CC-1-XLR-Y-BAL from Flex and it looks good. I first found it would not key the Flex 6300 but I went ahead and just put my push button transmit button into the back of the rig in the PTT RCA female plug. The audio worked when I tested it (power went out into the dummy load so I was happy and waited for the net the next day. 
When I check in I am told I have a popcorn popping noise in my audio. 
A friend and I went to a open frequency and I did everything I could think of to get rid of the noise. I turned on the monitor section so I could see mic audio when the rig was in receive mode. As I was unplugging the cable from the rig to plug in the hand mic I noticed the noise went away as I unplugged the cable. I got the idea to plug the cable in but not let the metal part of the cables plug touch the metal part of the female jack on the Flex 6300. Threw out my call and my friend said the noise of my audio was gone and was 100% clean. I am worried about FR getting into the audio now that the ground has been removed from the shield in the cable. So far no FR on 80 meters with my ALS-600 amp at 600 watts. 

Did I get the wrong cable? My mic is a PR-40 and my rig is a Flex 6300. If its not the wrong cable all I can think of is the cable is somehow defective. 

Thanks again for any help people send my way.
Delbert McCord
KA8OCN

k3Tim

Can you make sure the 8•pin foster connector is plugged in properly? The detent to line up the connector can sometimes be off. Not that I've ever done that.

Tim - W4TME

You have the right cable ( I use the same one).  It sounds like the ground is not correctly wired.  This would not be the first incident of a miswired mic cable.

The ground (shell) should be floating and connected to pin 5 on the Foster connector.  It should not be connected to MIC-.  

PTT (center conductor) should only be connected to pin 6 on the foster connector. The shield of the PTT jack should be connected to ground (pin 5)

You can test this out with an ohm meter.

If the cable is defective, depending on how long you have had it, you can open a HelPDesk ticket and request a replacement.

Delbert McCord

Thanks Tim that gives me the info to at least test the cable out and yes it is plugged in correctly. I ordered a second cable from a differrent company last night and I will try that out. I have a second Flex 6300 at the cabin I could use it on so its not a waist of money. 

I read somewhere on the forum of Flex changing something in the mic circuit on the 6300's when they first came out to allow them to change from unballanced to ballanced audio. Could this rig be one of the early ones? I know I purchased my new one just as they came out at Dayton and they had to ship it to me and the used one (the one I am working with now) I purchased from Flex it was one of their traded in rigs so it could easly be one of the early models. 

Tim - W4TME

It might be possible that there is a grounding issue with 6300.  You can open a HelpDesk ticket and we can investigate that as a possibility if the cable checks out OK.