Using 2nd channel of TDA2822 for S-meter

John VK2ETA suggests using a section of the original AGC circuit of the µBITx (design by Ashhar Farhan VU2ESE) for generating a signal for an S-meter so that this can be used by his modified software.

This was part of the pre-production uBitx diagram but was not implemented in the production version.

The 2N7002 is used as an automatic gain control and can be used or not for that application.   The circuit has limitations since it was not included in the production version.

You would need to insert a trim-potentiometer (10K ohms is good) between pin 6 of the TDA2822 and the VOL-H connection to adjust the sensitivity, plus (VERY IMPORTANT) a voltage divider, between the cathode of the diode and the ground, to limit the voltage to under 5VDC for the analogue input of the Raduino.

John would use 330K ohm in series with 100K ohm to the ground, and connect A7 to the junction of the two resistors.

Further adjustments are available in the software if required as we define the 9 stages of the S-meter display (first stage is zero, then 6 stages for growing bars, 1 stage showing “+” and one stage showing the custom “++” symbol). In ubitx_20.ino it shows as:

int sMeterLevels[] = {0, 5, 17, 41, 74, 140, 255, 365, 470};

The values in the array are the measured values on the analogue input (defined as A7 above) at which we step into a higher “stage” and can go from zero for zero volts to 1023 for a 5V DC value.

Reference