GME

Did you buy from an authorised dealer or eBay?

If dealer, they will have the proof you need.

If eBay, best of luck and could even be a knock off?

You need to leave more food scraps in your car to change the rats diet :)

I have never seen that happen before, even my 19 yo one that cops some sun is fine. Hope they sort it for you they are pretty good to deal with

Had the same happen to an ICOM cord that didn't see any sun but it was a few years old before it started to go. I put some flexible conduit around it and a bit of tape and was good for a bit longer before I eventually replaced it.

You don't have any sort of "pollutant" on your hands ? Insect spray, oil, grease, etc which might affect the plastic ?
Mine is still perfect after 7 years.

Cheers
Jim

Have seen this happen on a number of units, with no apparent reason for doing so. Often in similar operating conditions, such as extreme temps, high UV & contaminants, one fails, the others last “forever”.

Just wonder if Jim is on the money with his thoughts on the issue?

Bob

Same as Bob. I,ve seen this on numerous cables from all makes. No apparent reason either.

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Further to what Jim has said:
I have manufactured several hundred listening devices for hearing impaired persons. These devices used headphones of the type readily available on the retail market. Over the period of about 5 years approximately 10 or more were returned with the headphone cord embrittled in the region of the cord Y-junction which sits close to the chest of the user. This resulted in the cord plastic coating crumbling off. No other part of the cord ever became embrittled.

There was some limit to how much questioning I could make to my clients so I never was able to isolate the problem, it was reported by both male and female users. It even happened to a pair of headphones I used personally in the workshop. I came to the conclusion that it was somehow related to body skin products, maybe sweat, but never solved it. Note that the problem was confined to the yoke section of the cord only even though in my phones at least, there was no degradation elsewhere on the cord.

But in your case at least Qldcamper, I would put my money on some product on your hands as the damaged zone is likely to be in regular contact at that point.

Had a similar thing happen 2 years ago to an older set. Once it starts you might save it via tape but I left it and reaped the result - almost full length delamination.

Wrote to GME (they were VERY slow to respond but it was covid) about replacement options and they said: "The curly cord for this microphone has been redesigned and stronger than previous versions of microphones sold with the TX3500S."

The cords were nearly (sorta) as expensive as a discounted handset so I bought a McGrath Foundation pink one. Sadly still has a black curly cord tho.

Probably a standard first response from GME Qld so I'd just say you no longer have the receipt. If they don't come to the party feel free to use my quote as they obviously acknowledge there were problems with some cords.

GL

The cord is ok on my GME microphone, it's the soft touch rubber that went sticky, so had to peel it off. Now it really looks bad.

Same thing happened to me. I bought a new microphone and put very small spiral wrap around that part of the cord. I attributed the failure to either sun or constant flexing. If it was something on my hand it would only be dirt!!!

G'day qldcamper

The loss of 'life' if that is a way to describe something like rubber losing it's integrity is not uncommon since the introduction of Butyl rubber, not much out there these days of things being labeled rubber actually being true rubber, inner tubes and the like, if these have yellow brand markings they are not rubber, if the product has blue markings they are rubber.
Now to the radio hand piece curly wire sheath falling apart, it too is not uncommon and I for one don't believe hand sanitizer of bug spray or aftershave has anything to do with your 'curly' bits falling off.



Here are a couple of images of my 'curly' bits on my Codan 9323 HF Radio microphone hand piece, the deterioration started happening about two years after installing the unit, this install was done about 25 years ago, all the 'rubbery bits' have long gone, it's ugly as sin but still works just fine, the VKS 737 operator didn't complain about radio performance the last time I checked in with them.

Safe travels : Joe