If You Do That Again I'll Cut Off Your Fingers!

Microphone users, I'm watching you...

This is the inside of a failed radio microphone plug.  There are actually two broken wires here, one in the plug itself, and another near the right crocodile clip that was causing an intermittent crackling sound.  An hour of careful soldering, heat-shrinking and testing later and the microphone is back in working order.

Over the past year I have seen a complete lack of respect for microphones.  I've seen them swung around by their cables, antennae used as a handle to haul them out of pockets, and when they are finished, the wire is tightly wrapped around the transmitter.  The wires used in microphones are exceptionally thin, thinner than the cheap earbud headphones that come with MP3 players.  They have to be thin, so they are unobtrusive, but this makes them fragile. It would be possible to replace the wire with the orange cable from a flymo, but that might be excessive...

So now having repaired a couple of microphones, I am warning microphone users everywhere that I will forgive you for swinging the microphone around by either of its cables, but only after I have cut off one your fingers.  I know I'm supposed to forgive you 77 times, but I'm sure you will get the hint after the tenth digit.