I completed, to the point of testing, the UBitx's receiver late last night. There is little for the builder to assemble and since the board/raduino minus a few discrete components such as the rotary encoder was tested prior to shipping if something was to be amiss it is likely to be associated with the discrete components added by the builder.
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Something is amiss. The push button feature of the encoder was not properly engaging the menus associated with the raduino. The rotary feature of the encoder was not properly resulting in the portion of the spectrum being listened to having undergone change. Specifically a single push on the encoder's shaft resulted in the display reading, "Band Select ?" and a subsequent or follow up push on the encoder's shaft resulted in "Press to Confirm" being displayed in the LCD screen. One more push brought the display back to "LSB A: 7.150.050" being displayed and any rotary motion applied to the encoder's shaft saw little or no change in the frequency being displayed or heard. It should be noted that the receiver seems to be fine because on a few occasions rotary input resulted in changes that led to several stations in the 40 meter band being heard.
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I suspected an issue with the encoder and performed a simple voltage test of the encoder's pin outs. The output associated with the black wire showed voltage changing high/low as expected. The output associated with the brown wire was not as expected for it was a constant high or near 5 volts when the shaft was rotated. The output associated with the red wire was changing high to low when the encoder shaft was pushed but in a manner that was erratic.
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At this point, knowing the main boards were tested prior to shipping, I am assuming the rotary encoder is defective. It also should be noted that wiring the rotary feature of the encoder backwards would only see a change in direction of up the band versus down the band being displayed/tuned by rotating the encoder shaft, so miss wiring is not the cause of the issue.
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Late last night I ordered 5 rotary encoders, they are fragile, that match what came with the kit from the parts supplier, Digi Key. I also have the 40 meter version of the kit arriving soon that I can borrow an encoder from. My plan is to replace the rotary encoder.
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?The encoder is more or less meant to be installed on a board with traces much like an IC and is rather fragile. I am thinking that when I make the change/swap that I will first mount the encoder on a bit of board that has foil traces leading to each pin out so as to prevent the pin outs from being damaged during the soldering of the wires leading back to the raduino.
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Once the swap has occurred I hope to see that the radio is responding to input at the rotary encoder but electronics and micro controllers, not being in the domain of my field, lead me to ask if there is anything that I have overlooked that might be the cause of the issue that I experienced??
Incidentally, the BitX40 arrived today, so I will try sealing out the encoder and report back on the result. Also, the Digi Key part number isPEC11R-4020F-S0012-ND and runs $1.68 each.
Thanks, any useful information on this issue will be welcomed.
Mike
