Category: uBitx News

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Remote access to your uBITx

There have been quite a few posts recently on the BITX20 list about remote access to your µBITx.  There are a number of ways to achieve this, but Jens (KM6ZJV) has provided a useful summary of how he has achieved this using a v5 µBITx connected around the clock to a Raspberry Pi 3 used as an FT8 monitor.

Jens  can access it from anywhere on any device (laptop, iPhone, iPad) with VNC and OpenVPN.

A big advantage of this setup is that the radio is always ‘ready for action’ – even if you have only a few minutes time to transmit (FT8 or FT4 or FS8).

As others have mentioned, the Raspberry PI comes pre-installed with VNC.

Using OpenVPN

OpenVPN can easily be installed with:

http://www.pivpn.io/

OpenVPN allows access to the Raspberry Pi VNC server with the same IP address / port number used in your local network (without a VPN connection). OpenVPN client applications are available for all major platforms.

Of course, once you have established the OpenVPN connection, you can access any other  part of your home network (fileserver, printer, etc.) as well – not just VNC running on the Raspberry Pi.

Jens does not not recommend directly enabling a port to connect to the Raspberry PI VNC server, instead enable a port to connect to the OpenVPN server.

Using Teamviewer

Frank KJ5WI suggests an alternative in teamviewer host.

Teamviewer host on the Raspberry Pi from the above link will allow a remote connection without opening anything. When the webpage opens, scroll down and watch for the pi logo on the right side.  Frank says that the Sun City Georgetown amateur radio club uses Teamviewer for remote access to their club station radios.

KM4UDX took a bit to get both computers trusted and set up… one running on Ubuntu/AtomicPi and the other Win10/oldlaptop. But he says, “it works!”

The  screen capture above from his win10 laptop controlling the AtomicPi with ubuntu controlling his V4 uBITX running WSJTX and completing a JT8 QSO.

Don KM4UDX is thrilled to have remote control!

After his initial success, he switched to FL-Digi and this works as well sending the keyboard via the link to FL-Digi text input window. However, if the uBITX audio output level is set too low from the last time you have adjusted the speaker volume, then you have no way to change/increase the uBITX output level to make Fl-Digi happy.

Challenges with remote operation on the µBITx

Don sees the real advantage from complete visualization of the transceiver (.e.g. Flex).  If he had all of the uBITX functions on the screen, then the volume controls would be screen sliders allowing adjustment of all functions via the remote control.

The first challenge is how to adjust the uBITX volume levels in software through some sort of interface.

The second challenge is not seeing the RF output levels.  While you can adjust the drive level remotely, the impact on RF power output levels is not known, and could result in harmful emissions.

Reference
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Adjusting your BFO offset using audio spectrum analyzer software

In adjusting the BFO  you have to be careful to not transmit both the signal AND the carrier.  If the filter has been shifted too far, it is possible to have the carrier transmitting unintentionally. Roman K7TXL found this out while trying to transmit FT8 signals.  He found two spikes on his SDR.

In his experience he has found that the only reliable approach, that doesn’t involve complex test instruments, is to download and use an audio spectrum analyzer program.

Roman uses SpectrumView by WD6CNF.

SpectrumView software

WD6CNF Audio Spectrum Analyzer runs on the Windows operating system and has the following features:

  • Analyzes audio from 10 Hz to 20 kHz
  • Takes an input from a microphone or wave file
  • Has variable displays
    • Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) display
      • Variable sample rates (8000 Hz, 11025 Hz, 22050 Hz, 44100 Hz)
      • Variable transform sizes (1k, 2k, 4k, 8k)
      • Upper and lower limits adjustable
      • Continuous, averaged, peak hold
      • Selectable foreground/backgrounds
      • Variable markers (2)
      • Save a reference plot, compare with the foreground plot
    • Time display (oscilloscope)
      • Triggered sweep
    • Waterfall display (color or B/W)

Alignment procedure from Roman K7TXL

  1.  Disconnect antenna from ubitx, or better, find an unused part of the band with just hiss, no other signals
  2. Run audio out from ubitx into PC/Mac/Linux audio in
  3. Run spectrum analyzer and configure it to listen to the audio in
  4. Turn up volume on ubitx until levels are reasonably high but not clipping in the spectrum analyzer
  5. For the ubitx 5 (not the earlier versions), you will want to set the BFO somewhere around 11.055-11.056 MHz as a starting point.
  6. I am going to presume that you started with the BFO frequency on the high side, say 11.057 and you are lowering it. As you do so, you should see on the spectrum analyzer that the noise’s high frequency roll off frequency increase. At some point it will no longer get any higher no matter what you do with the BFO value. The point you want is right as you touch that max value. You might have to back off and watch the max value decrease, then adjusting again until you find the maximum.
  7. Save the BFO frequency using the PTT where you get maximum high frequency response. Roman found that the BFO frequency was about 1.5-2 kHz lower than the frequency where he got the most “bass” response in his headphones, thus the final result had less bass response.
  8. If you have an SDR, you can double-check your results: Run ubitx into a dummy load and have an SDR with separate tiny (or no) antenna nearby, either run WSJT-X “Tune”, or a single frequency of audio into the ubitx mic. The SDR will likely be sensitive enough to pick up stray RF (even with the dummy load) and you should be able to see only one, not two spikes on the display (make sure you zoom in maximum to a narrow bandwidth view).

After this adjustment, Roman has managed to make a few longer distance FT8 contacts, i.e. Seattle to Alaska on 40m.

Reference
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LF homebrew for the uBITx

Olivier has connected his uBitx  to  a homebrew converter (using an NE612) (see schematic attached) and PA0RDT’s mini whip just to see what he could find on the VLF bands.

He  made RX tests on DCF77 on 16.4Khz (Norway) with good results so I think it will be nice on 17.2Khz from Sweden.
Olivier has also provided a link to a short video, “Listening to BBC4 on 198 KHz” from the north of France.
Reference
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Reducing the audio gain on a v5 uBITx

Roman provides a no-soldering hack to reduce the audio-stage gain on a v5 (current model) µBITx.

Power off the BitX before starting…

1. Observe which end the notch on the body of the 386 is facing
2. Remove 386 carefully from socket (i.e. use tiny screwdriver pull up chip body incrementally back and forth from each side)
3. Gently lift either pin 1 or 8 90 degrees so it is horizontal. These are the pins closest to the notch, that is, in each line of four pins, the pin at the end of each line closes to the notch.
4. Reinsert the 386 into the socket in a straight down manner until firmly in place, ensuring that all remaining 7 pins go into their proper slot (and don’t bend accidentally due to misalignment). Make sure that the notch on the 386 is facing the same direction that it was when you removed it.

Try it out by turning on the BitX – there will be less hiss added to the audio (this is especially noticeable in headphones)

Reference
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Too much RF up the spout

Jonas SM4VEY posted on the IO GROUPS BITX20 list that his µbitx hadn’t survived field day operations After Jonas discovered his transceiver was dead he connected a dummy load via a power meter as an antenna.

The power meter showed 2 w power into the 50 ohm dummy whenever another nearby station transmitted into a nearby antenna.

His poor µBITx was now as deaf as a brick and provided (almost) no power out on transmit.    Jonas mused “What should I suspect first?”

Constructors made a number of suggestions.  Jonas reported the fixes as follows:

“After replacing the 1st mixer diodes the RX came to life again and I could hear -120dBm signals which represented an improvement of around 30 dB.

“I then started measuring the signal levels before and after each amplification block in the TX path and found Q90 having less signal after, then before.  I replaced Q90 with a leaded transistor and the µBITx now works normally again.

“I’ll look at adding 2 reversed (one each way) diodes to ground from the RX line before the 1st mixer. I’m not sure these will survive 2W though…”

Reference

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Important  Information

Ubitx.net provides help for constructors:  Preventing catastrophes and providing guides, fixes and modifications for your µBITx.  We are an information site only and not associated with HF Signals.

WARNING:  As shipped, your µBITx  v3  or v4 board will probably not be compliant with emission requirements.  It has been found to generate spurs and harmonics.  There are now simple fixes available to address these issues.  Make sure you apply them prior to operating the transceiver on an antenna.

CAUTION : If you power up the µBITX without the pull-up resistor the µBITX is likely to go into CW transmit. Make sure you install the 4.7k pull up resistor on the CW key pin!

v3 Board?  – There are known issues with WX brand TDA2822 chips (U1): Read this.  Earlier UCI and later socketed TDA2822 are not affected.   You will probably want to do the audio pop mod at least.

v4 Board? – If your audio is distorted see this article.  Note that audio output is reduced over the v3 board.  If you use a low impedance speaker you may need an additional amplifier module (LM386, TDA2822, etc.) to get adequate volume. The audio pop mod is not required on v4 boards.

v5 Board?  – It is too early to say as yet whether this is compliant, but early indications suggest that some boards on some bands may not be fully compliant, but they are a lot closer to compliance than v3 and v4 boards.  At 30dB down or more your spurs and harmonics will be in milliwatts!

SHIPPING:  µBitx orders were shipping within one or two working days of being ordered. You should receive a shipping notification through PayPal once your product has been shipped. You will not receive any other email.

BITX QSO DAY:   Every Sunday – 3PM & 7PM Local Time – 7277 kHz in North America, 7177 kHz elsewhere.

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Lots of development on the 5″ Nextion screens

Mark AJ6CU  has announced that he have completed what he considers a “beta 1″ for the 5″ version of the CEC user interface.

Note this user interface is substantially different than the original one released by KD8CEC (see screenshots below).  It has been optimized for 800×480 screens and is probably not easily migrated to smaller ones (sorry),

But if you are a lucky ham with either a 7″ or 9” Nextion, it should be a simple matter of opening the “.hmi” file up in the Nextion editor, change the Device settings to match your screen, and compile it to create a tft file.  Mark acknowledges the original work done by Joe Puma (KD2NFC).  Without his headstart, Mark says “I would probably have not been able to complete this.”

The files (both .tft and .hmi are in the files section for the IO BITX20 group.: Files/AJ6CU Nextion 5-inch files/Nextion5inch June 23, 2019-Beta1/

The following screenshots show some of the new GUI.

MAIN MENU
The main change here was to Group the various functions in to “Applications”, “Settings” and “Expert”. Mark did some renaming so that it was clearer on the functions. Also, Factory Recovery now has its own screen that clarifies what is happening (for dummies …). And there is an “About” screen…

ABOUT SCREEN
Every applications should have its own About screen. 🙂

Note that in addition to credits and version, there is a list of the three known problems.

Save/Recall from Memory
Mark has added a popup virtual keyboard for adding a label/tag to a memory location. And he has also made sure that the Current VFO setting was kept. That allows you to turn around on your VFO while the Store to Memory is onscreen and you can save it whenever you find something interesting.

BANDSCAN
The Bandscan as originally designed had a number of problems including only able to look at signals 2k at a time and a maximum bandwidth of ~250kHz. This meant that if you scanned 80m, you only got the bottom half of the band. Mark didn’t like the way bands were pre-selected, as he preferred that the user could select any three in any order. He has added several missing bands.  (For folks outside of USA FCC, it is easy to change these bands from within the .HMI file. Let me know if you would like to do this and I will provide details.) . There is still some room for improvements here.  Mark plans to experiment with a smaller frequency step and smaller scan bandwidth. But that would be part of a future effort…

The first photo below shows the popup selection of offsets from the beginning of the band, using a mechanism similar to how the mode CWL/USB, etc is selected on the front page. The second photo shows a completed band scan that gets to the top of the 3 selected bands.

CW Decoder
Mark has made some minor GUI changes and renamed this function to reflect its functionality. He has also added a slider switch on the left to select between Signal analysis and CW decode.

Factory Recovery
Previously, pushing Factory Recovery required  3 presses to run Factory Recovery. But there was no explanation of what it did and why you probably did not want to do it!  Mark has added a separate screen with explanation and double confirmation.

Main Menu
Mark has added direct access to Store/Record to Memory (see upper right). Also he somewhat liked this spectrum that he captured on Field Day. 🙂

Mark’s Setup
Mark has run both a 5″ and a 3.2″ display simultaneously (thanks Ian!) during development. This allowed for quick answers to the inevitable questions such as: “What did Ian originally attend this screen to do?”  It was very helpful and he would recommend this approach to anybody else that is doing development for Nextion screens.

Reference
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Salvaging a computer power supply to power your uBITx

R N Harp needed a regulated power supply to run his µBitx and a couple of arduino kits, but he didnt feel like shelling out hard cash for a $100+ power supply unit.

Instead, he modified an ATX power supply from a dead PC.   He gets 3v, 5v, and 12 volts.   Additional parts were already on hand.   He also salvaged a bunch of other parts from the dead pc, including a few toroids from another power supply.

Reference
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Biteensio strengthener

Jim Sheldon W0EB, TSW Project Coordinator, has indicated a way to secure the BITeensio to the uBITX main board when it’s plugged in.

He used a 3D printer to come up with a nice set of hold down clamps for the BITeensio.  These  mount using the front corner mounting holes on the main board and hook over the cable clearance notches on either side of the BITeensio. He has updated the TSW website (www.w0eb.com) with all the details including pictures.

Jim will sell printed brackets, but only in the US, as international shipping would be too costly.   Anybody, however, who has access to a 3D printer can print their own, nas Jim has made the printable .stl file available on the website

So if you have one of Jim’s BITeensio cards installed in your uBITX then it should also be available on “Thingiverse” shortly.

These strengtheners only take about 40 minutes to print and if you use the print resolution and parameters included in the zip file they will be quite strong and easy to install.

Reference