Roadking 56 broken wire?

Most often the yellow is clipped short and not used. Red with shield is ground, white is audio, black is receive, blue is transmit. In Astatics the red and blue are reversed (red is TX and blue is switch common (ground), and I have seen blue used for switch common (ground) with red being TX in some newer Roadking microphones. Seems as the years go by the original color convention is not the norm like it used to be. Usually the only time you will see yellow used in the RK56 or 636L is when it was used in place of a bad wire when a repair is done. If you are curious in some older models the yellow was used to mute (short out) the microphone audio when in receive.

 

It is a consumer version noise cancelling microphone based upon the original 1960's Johnson stock microphone. Not to be compared with a true noise canceling microphone such as the Sure 577B but it's relative output is far lower than an average stock microphone such as what came with the radio. You cannot hold it a distance away from your mouth and expect to get enough output to drive the transmitters modulation stage. I have seen people hold them 6 inches away, such as they are used to doing with a power microphone and then complain their RK56 does not work. You will notice a partial circle plastic guard, it rests against your upper lip. Meaning you must directly speak into it. Most hold it just slightly away which sounds better, especially if you condition your voice to project sound. Not easy to describe, think of how a ventriloquist projects their voice. I learned by experience shooting skip from the late 60's on where there were many competing strong signals and it was difficult to be the station that was heard the loudest over a thousand miles away.

In any case you cannot treat it like a stock model and expect to be even moderately loud, you must learn the right way to talk. When you do your signal will be stronger and you will like the sound quality more. To answer your question yes the element could be defective but I would first look at how you are using it. With the parts now being made in China the element quality is lower. Typically the element fails, gets very weak and tinny sounding. They do a poor job of Nickel coating the NdFeB magnet. Without this coating the Neodymium turns to a white oxide dust rapidly, when a small flaw exists in the outer plating Oxygen finds a way in. The element is doomed at that point, as the Nd turns to dust the magnet swells until the voice-coil starts locking in place with the peak frequency response going up in pitch and the voltage output dropping. If at that time you took it apart and looked at the clear plastic bubble in the diaphragm you will see it filling with a white powder, Nd2O3. This failure mode is not as rare as one might think with the newer elements, but if I had to guess I believe most likely you are holding yours too far away and not driving enough voice into it.

 

Yep, hold the mic closer to your mouth, and crank-up the Mic Gain on the radio...

 

I would like to know what the two pin plug on my rk 400 is called so I can look up adapters for head phone jack

 

Do you have a picture?