Ian KD8CEC’s test firmware supported extended extended buttons in Version 1.072 and this feature continues in the latest BETA release version 1.073.
Ian received from the beta testers to make the extended key (push button functions) a bit more flexible. He changed the feature to allow up to six pushbuttons (previously the maximum was four buttons) and functions that are allocated to buttons can now be selected by the user.
Description of changes
In uBITX Manager V1.04, up to 6 expansion keys (pushbutton keys) can be set as follows.
You need to set the role for the ‘Function’ item.
Function settings currently able to be controlled by buttons include:
0:None
1:Mode Select
2:Band Up
3:Band Down
4:Tune Step
5:VFO A/B Toggle
6:Split On/Off
7:TX On/Off
8:SDR Mode On/Off
9:RIT On/Off
In the above example, Button 1 is Mode Select, Button 2 is Band Up, Button 3 is Band Down, and Button 4 is Tune Step.
If you are a frequent CW practitioner, you can use the TX On / Off button as shown below:
Users may also want to turn off the transmit function by pressing button 4 during CW practice. At the end of the CW practice exercise, pressing button 4 would again activate the transmit function.
If you are a frequent user of SDR, you can probably set it up like this:
Since the Mode select function is not very important in SDR, a VFOA / VFO B toggle switch and SDR On / Off switch may be mapped instead.
As mentioned in the previous article, resistors can be any value (but keep them apart). Ian recommends you use resistor values over 100K (with values less than this reserved for later use cases).
Mike ZL1AXG found that resistor values greater than 500K were too close to the residual value sensed by the arduino analogue pin and caused the software to be unstable. Choose values between 100k and 500k.