Hey Jack!? Easier?? Sure, ok.? But its not always about what easy, is it.? If it were, we would just buy all of our ham gear and be done with it.? That being said, whats mentioned above isn't that difficult.? I used and attiny85 that I programmed with the ArduinoIDE.? Works like a champ.? The one thing I would love to add is, when I change the step size in the uBitx, I would like to have the radio change the divisor on the fly.? For 10 Hz step, divide by 2, for the others by 4.? The goal would be for about 2.4 kHz span per one knob revolution when 10 Hz is selected, and about 12 kHz when 100 Hz is selected.
My reasons for going to a higher PPR optical encoder over the mechanical encoder that most use was all about the feel.? Most optical encoders have bearings and makes for very smooth operation.? The encoder in my uBitx is 128ppr and the Nano just isn't up to that task.? It could likely be made to work but I'm no expert with the code or ISR's.? I also have the BITeensio board and I can tell you that with its Teensy 3.6 processor and? a few simple mods to their encoder routines, I was able to read my 1024 ppr encoders (overkill for sure) as fast as I could spin it, without missing a beat.? Point being, we really need a faster processor in the raduino, something like the Teensy 4 would be pretty interesting.? The Teensy 4 could open the door for having some fun with digital audio filters, better spectrum display, etc.
John Scherer