[sdiy] Radioshack Mic Elements... am I just stupid?

[Robotboy8 at aol.com]

So today I made a Radioshack run and picked up a bunch of components - 
diodes, pots, rectifier, and.. 3 microphone elements.  But I seem to be lacking in 
something.  I attached the red lead to the contact on the side of a 1/4" audio 
jack and the white lead to the contact on the bottom, put a cable between that 
and a tape recorder with 1/4 input, and recorded... got nothing save a few 
clicks when my fingers shorted the thing by accident.  Switched the polarity, 
same results.  Tried the other 3 mics, same results.  Then I tried each into a 
piece o crap guitar amp (about 3 watts, iirc) and got nothing but shorts again. 
 Am I missing something terribly obvious, or did I pick three bad elements 
out of the five they had?
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