David Griffith wrote:
As I approach the point when I'm ready to get an HF rig, I thought I'd
get some answers now. One thing that bugs me is to have cables sticking
out very near knobs and buttons. I see on most, if not all, HF rigs the
microphone jack is like that. I would like to tap the microphone jack
lines and run them to a new jack installed on the rear. Is this sort of
thing advisable?


Kenwood TS-2000 has two AUX ports on the rear,, Mulit-pin DIN plugs..
ONE of them is normally used for computer interface for digital
communications.

The pins on that port include:
Main audio out (Received audio on the main transceiver)
Sub audio out (You can figure that out)
Microphone in.. A genuine mic-level audio input
PTT.. Just like the one on the front jack but with a twist.

And as I recall a couple of other things. (I'm not looking at the
diagram just now)

The twist: If you ground the front panel PTT jack, or press the SEND
button in an audio mode, then the FRONT audio in (MIC-IN) is selected
and audio at the rear port is ignored.

If you ground the REAR PTT jack.. then audio from the FRONT jack is
ignored and rear input is selected.

Finally... I have no problem with the mic cable sticking out the front..
The only knob truly near it is "Audio Filter low frequency cut off
adjust" and I can do that with HRD or, Usually just leave it at the
minimum (100hz) setting. I do use the high frequency cut off adjust
(One farther right)

You could also make a right angle adapter to point the cable DOWN and
out of the way (or in the case of the TS-2000 off to the left)