The All-band HF Amateur Radio Transceiver: Just waiting to be modified
Ashhar Farhan has foreshadowed his upcoming Antuino design. This is a modern replacement to the Sweeperino he designed much earlier on. The Antuino uses an arduino nano and an si5351a (both can be found in the µBITx) and the crucial RF part – an AD8307.
Details can be found here:
Ashhar Farhar reported on 6 February 2019 that HF Signals has pushed the uBITx v5 into production. An initial 100 boards had arrived so they may run out quickly (reminding us of the v3 board shortages of 2018).
Note that HF Signals website has not yet been updated.
See the scans on https://groups.io/g/BITX20/album?id=84174.
The new Arduino firmware and the schematic can be found here: https://github.com/afarhan/ubitx_v5/.
The direct link to the schematic is here: https://github.com/afarhan/ubitx_v5/blob/master/ubitx_v5.pdf
The new firmware breaks backward compatibility with the previous firmware as the Intermediate Frequency is now 11.059 MHz and the relay switching is different. Probably, is it is possible to patch the new code to switch between the two LPF relay switching schemes as well as the IF with some #define statements.
The new ‘features’ are :
Mark N7EKU/VE3 has found the calculator on toroids.info to be very accurate — so much that he rarely measure after winding anymore. Toroids.info quotes a quite generous length of wire to use (even considering the 1″ leads) so he usually subtracts an inch.
No need to re-wind if you loose count. As long as you have a cell phone or other digital camera, just take a picture and then zoom in on it. It becomes very easy to count if you do that.
How to wind: first put the wire through the center, gather the ends, and pull them taut. Now wind one half of the windings, and then the other. This way you only have to deal with one half the length of wire at a time (instead of threading the entire length through for the beginning turns).
There is a long segment interviewing Ashhar Farhan, inventor of the uBITx (and in fact the whole BITx series of radios). He talks about the release of the v5 board, future plans, etc. Ashhar notes that around 20,000 boards have been manufactured to date! He is also planning to bring out an antenna analyzer kit with a number of additional features.
Regular visitors will have observed that uBITx.net has been out of action. The gap started with a vacation, and a quiet spell over Christmas and New Year. However, Mike ZL1AXG has had some health issues. Posting will commence again now, but it will take a while to catch up!
Note that older list posts will appear as back-dated items in December, January and February so as to appear in the correct sequence on this website. That means you may have to look back a few pages to find some real gold. This BITX20 list signal to noise ratio has been falling since a peak in around March 2018. More and more constructors are discovering the joys of the µBITx, but new ideas are harder to uncover amongst all of the postings!
[EDITOR]
Jim AB7VF made some measurements of CLK0 ouput (from the SI3571a chip on the Raduino board) and concluded that it would be helpful to filter the output.
He built a simple LPF on the raduino board to cut some of the ‘cruft’ getting into the mixers.
It seems to work.
David N8DAH has AGC boards for the µBITx available to order.
If you have any questions please e-mail either David N8DAH or Tim, KE2GKB at: info at kit-projects dot com.
The cost of the kit is US$15. Pretty much all international shipping is US$ 14 or US$15 with the exception of Canada which is US$10.50.
Order and information on the kit can be found here:
https://shop.kit-projects.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=101
Pop VU2POP shared pictures of his homemade ubitx cabinets. The design involves a common cabinet for both the standard manufacturer supplied 2 line 1602 LCD display as well as the 2.8″ TFT Nextion display. Pop says “You need to change out the bezel.” This is a really good idea.
He supplies the complete cabinet, fixtures, microphone, microphone and PTT sockets, associated PCBs, and the speaker, fuse holder, fuse, heat sink insulation kit, heat sink compound, tags, screws, usb cable panel mount, knobs, folding feet, glue, and a USB to rear panel connector cable to fit on to Radiuno.
This is similar to his earlier cases, except this case will have common front panel bezels for 2.8 inch TFT & 2 line LCD. Just change out the bezels! Constructors can build the stock µbitx to get going and then upgrade to a 2.8″ TFT display at a later date when they have the basic rig working perfectly.
At present these cases are only available for VU amateur operators.
DX shipments will be available at www.radiokart.in from Feb 2019.
Andy, KG5RKP notes that you can retrieve a bezel pattern for any of the Nextion displays from 3.2 through 7 inches from Itead:
https://www.itead.cc/wiki/Nextion_HMI_Solution#3D_printing_bezel
Andy had a bezel printed by a vendor via 3D Hubs:
David Balfour has made bezels for the 2.8 and 3.2″ Nextion screens by 3D prints. His rig is shown above.
The larger bezel is on thingiverse if you have a 3d printer. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3342327
David N8DAH from Kit Projects has kits available that will be of interest to µBITx constructors.
Keyer: https://shop.kit-projects.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=99
Touch Key/er: https://shop.kit-projects.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=98
Both are very small and perfect for QRP travel ops! They both use open source code based on JackYack keyer code
Also, ND6T has given permission for another release of his AGC. This version of the very popular kit add-on for the µBITx includes a few added goodies like an S-meter tap! This version will not require any drilling and should (if all goes as planned) solder right in and sit flat on the ubitx PCB.