Re: Teensy 3.5/3.6 upgrade for uBITX
I see the complexity and cost growing exponentially. That's fine but I
really don't see the uBIT-X as suited for going in that direction.??
It depends.? If you can fabricate a transceiver that competes with a rig costing 3x as much, why not? If your interest is hacking and DSP, why not? If you are trying to improve a rig with new/better features, why not? If you can have something that's better than, say an RS-918 at half the price, why not? Have you noticed how many people are standing on Farhan's shoulders and making his work even better? Also, an exponential cost function is probably not the case for most of the experiments that are going on right now. Look at the improvements Ian Lee has developed with almost no cost to the user. A lot of us are trying to convince the Techs with an HT and complaints that 2M offers nothing that their cell phone can't do to upgrade to General with an HF rig with reasonable power, features, and frequency agility. A lot of us are just working to move the tipping point for a lot of sideline people and if one of these new features pushes them over the edge...why not? That's the real genius that Farhan brought to the table: A rig that has the potential to make a lot of people sit up and take notice.
Jack, W8TEE
On Monday, April 23, 2018, 7:33:17 PM EDT, Kees T <windy10605@...> wrote:
To continue a little further.....I see those who are interested in DSP and other number crunching applications will require a RPi, Teensy 3.5/3.6, or STM32F4xx/STM32F7xxx microcontrollers for standalone operation or as computer frontends. As a result, I see the complexity and cost growing exponentially. That's fine but I really don't see the uBIT-X as suited for going in that direction.? ?
As Farahan said:??The ?BITX circuit design is simple enough to fit a single page. It¡¯s simplicity encourages you to modify, change and experiment (but keep it simple)......The ?BITX aims to fulfill such a need. It is a compact, single board design that covers the entire HF range with a few minor trade-offs.
73 Kees K5BCQ
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Re: Teensy 3.5/3.6 upgrade for uBITX
To continue a little further.....I see those who are interested in DSP and other number crunching applications will require a RPi, Teensy 3.5/3.6, or STM32F4xx/STM32F7xxx microcontrollers for standalone operation or as computer frontends. As a result, I see the complexity and cost growing exponentially. That's fine but I really don't see the uBIT-X as suited for going in that direction.? ?
As Farahan said:??The ?BITX circuit design is simple enough to fit a single page. It¡¯s simplicity encourages you to modify, change and experiment (but keep it simple)......The ?BITX aims to fulfill such a need. It is a compact, single board design that covers the entire HF range with a few minor trade-offs.
73 Kees K5BCQ
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finally after all the years running a stock 20A I¡¯ve done the voltage stabilizing mod and the varactor tuning mod with a 10turn pot, and I think I¡¯ve worked out the L7 windings now to get into the phone section of the band. But as a result, the band spread is only about 25khz.?
I remember doing a tuning mod on a sw40+ Using a 10turn pot and the bandspread was small. There I added capacitance in the VFO and get nearly 100khz band spread with a 10turn pot.?
I¡¯m thinking that by increasing C39 on the Bitx20A I should get more bandspread? ?Has anyone done this? I¡¯m I going in the right direction? I¡¯ll try it nevertheless but I didn¡¯t want to reinvent the wheel. Any guidance? Thanks!
72/73 de Chas ai4ot
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Re: Teensy 3.5/3.6 upgrade for uBITX
In keeping in line with Farhan's $100 goal for the Transceiver, I would seriously look at using the "Protoneer" mentioned by some others. It has the "Nano" form factor, is Arduino Zero based, runs at 3x the Nano speed, has 8x the Nano flash memory, 16x the Nano RAM, and has a DAC. Seems like that is a great opportunity to sweep in some open source code like that K3NG has for his keyer, other modes of operation, and many, many, more features over time. 256KB of flash memory is a LOT of available space. The Protoneer is $10 and you can get a group together to save on the $5 postage from NZ. I'm sure there are plenty of firmware writers out there.
73 Kees K5BCQ
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I made one from two carbon blocks, in a vertical configuration, with a dimpled area and a pencil sharpened at both ends.
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 4:07 PM, Dexter N Muir <dexy@...> wrote: Carbon mics need a bit more bias current. Most can be revived by physical shock, breaking up clumps of granules packed by gravity in storage/disuse.
Challenge: the carbon mic that got me into electronics and eventually Ham Radio, some 60-odd years ago!
Take a (sorta fist-size to shoe-box) cardboard box lid.
Take 2 razor blades (single-sided are best)with wires attached.
Poke those blades up through the box-lid beside each other, (just) not touching. A twist of the insulated wires might help steady them.
Take a section of pencil-lead and balance that across the blade edges.
Connect up - you've got a mic!
73
Dex, ZL2DEX
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Re: Erratic tuning with my new uBitx
Thanks Ron I'll have a look at WeeWx
73 Chris
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Re: Teensy 3.5/3.6 upgrade for uBITX
I'd bet worst case latency on a not seriously loaded RPi is less than the
milliseconds it takes us to load a new clock frequency into the si5351 via 100khz i2c.
A google for "Rasberry Pi RT" shows there are real time variants of the kernel.
I've got no idea how real time.?
There are some going without linux, programming the bare metal.
But I like the idea of still using a simple microntroller for basic rig control.
Being something of a pessimist, I'd prefer not to depend on something
as complex as the RPi,?too many billions of things that could go wrong.
Jerry
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On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 11:01 am, Robert Weiman wrote:
The one big difference in this application between the Raspberry Pi and a micro-controller like the Teensy and the Arduinos is how much overhead the OS imposes.? Linux is a full blown consumer OS and is not a real-time OS.? It can impose non-deterministic delays on how long it takes to respond to an interrupt / toggle an I/O pin / etc.? On most of the hobby micro-controllers, there is significantly less overhead imposed by minimal, almost not really an OS, provided by the Arduino build environment.? Personally, I will add a PI to my uBitx build, but it won't be replacing the micro-controller in the Raduino - more augmenting the system by providing higher level software and interfaces (Digital modes, etc).??
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So far I received 10 requests for parts
as of now. I have mailed out today 7, the remaining 3 will be in
the mail tomorrow. I expect the results to vary, because it if
transistor dependent. Please let us know how it works for you.
Also, thanks for sending me the QRP sticker. Some sent me money,
which is a nice thought, but completely unnecessary. I have these
2 reels of parts, with 1000s of parts on each left over from an
old business. The parts are 20 years old, so they have no resale
value. I'm just happy they are being put to good use.
I am working on some other changes, AGC and S meter. The AGC works
well, but the S meter, not so well, so I need to work more on
that. I will post the work when I finish. After that I will work
on the 70 watt amp, which I mentioned before, and probably a
preamp.
Howard
On 4/20/2018 7:14 PM, Chris Clarke wrote:
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Howard
I don't normally do SMD but this sounds like a good idea ... I'll
need to order some for this side of the pond, but which physical
SMD sizes are these components?
73 Chris
G3SQU
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Re: UBITX Assemly Wiki Page
#ubitx
Sorry, should have said "sockets" instead of "switches".
-Jonathan
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Re: UBITX Assemly Wiki Page
#ubitx
Bob,
Nice diagram!?? I had a question about your "N/C" notation on the switches.? In some cases the line between the pins marked with N/C is solid and dashed in others.? What is the intent of the notation?
Thanks
-Jonathan? KF6RTA
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Carbon mics need a bit more bias current. Most can be revived by physical shock, breaking up clumps of granules packed by gravity in storage/disuse.
Challenge: the carbon mic that got me into electronics and eventually Ham Radio, some 60-odd years ago!
Take a (sorta fist-size to shoe-box) cardboard box lid.
Take 2 razor blades (single-sided are best)with wires attached.
Poke those blades up through the box-lid beside each other, (just) not touching. A twist of the insulated wires might help steady them.
Take a section of pencil-lead and balance that across the blade edges.
Connect up - you've got a mic!
73
Dex, ZL2DEX
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Sergio, Please look at this message ( /g/BITX20/message/21621).? Randy K7AGE measured all of the transistor voltages and attached them as a PDF.? Please measure the voltages on your board and compare to the document.? If you find something that is very different, that is probably your issue.
Hope this helps.
Marco - KG5PRT
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 2:52 PM, SaMa photo SaMa photo <infosamaphoto@...> wrote: Thanks Raj
it's the first thing I did! I checked all the connections!
By turning the VFO, the QRM increases on some frequencies but no QSO is heard. But stopping on one of these frequencies, if you remove the antenna the QRM should go to zero but instead it does not change anything! it's as if the antenna is not connected! I checked the antenna line up to the first transistor, passing through the relays and the frequency coils and everything is OK! See the attached diagram! I checked the one marked in yellow!
Thank you
Sergio
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Re: Teensy 3.5/3.6 upgrade for uBITX
A socket for the nano would help a lot.
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 12:50 PM, Gary Anderson <gary.ag5tx@...> wrote: The uBITX was designed to use the pre-existing Raduino board. My opinion on a fresh start would be to put the Si5351A directly on the uBITX board, so only the I2C digital pins would need to be routed. This would leave a cleaner option to connect various micro-controller boards, depending on the features desired and budget. Separate the RF analog board from the digital / audio processing board.? But we are not limited to what we can do, so no real issue here.
IMO, the Teensy 3.6 is a wise choice for adding DSP and SDR features with the option to stay in the familiar Arduino IDE. It appears that PJRC's business model is willing to cover their code development cost with the sale of the boot loader code pre-flashed in the MKL02/MKL04 chip ($7 US) and very generous IMO. This means there's an option to also place the K66 directly on your own board design and just buy the boot loader IC from PJRC. PJRC is a business, we are mostly just here as a hobby. If we weren't hobbyists or working to enable hobbyists, we would probably not be using Arduino IDE :)
I am an advocate of the Teensy/K66 direction, but last week I ordered a Protoneer Nano-Arm. ??$10 + $5 shipping to US from NZ.? This board has the same footprint as the Nano, and _should_ be a fairly easy Nano hardware replacement directly on the Radunio board. (might need to change out the 5V reg to 3.3V, etc) This may be an interesting option for those who would like a micro-controller modernization / upgrade without the budget or desire to move up to all the options Teensy /K66 enables.? One one hand, I want all the features.? One the other hand, I wish to stay true to Farhan's original goal of a $100 radio shipped, or take it to the next level of minimizing total system cost.?
?
Regards,
Gary
AG5TX
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Thanks Raj
it's the first thing I did! I checked all the connections!
By turning the VFO, the QRM increases on some frequencies but no QSO is heard. But stopping on one of these frequencies, if you remove the antenna the QRM should go to zero but instead it does not change anything! it's as if the antenna is not connected! I checked the antenna line up to the first transistor, passing through the relays and the frequency coils and everything is OK! See the attached diagram! I checked the one marked in yellow!
Thank you
Sergio
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Re: UBITX Assemly Wiki Page
#ubitx
Lee:? Thanks for the microphone suggestion. Snagged it from a web site as a raster image.? Converted it to match the wire-up diagram.
If you find anything else in error, please advise.
73, Bob W4RJP
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I have been using my uBITX exclusively on CW for the last couple weeks. After getting used to the idiosyncrasies of the radio, and using KD8CEC v 1.061, it's actually quite a CAPABLE CW rig. Whether its making SKCC group contacts, working Special Event stations (got the Titanic SE in one call), or general rag-chewing, the uBITX is a great radio.
KB2HSH
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Brady
The uBITx is never going to be a serious CW contest rig, but I imagine you are not expecting that.
I only operate CW, never more than 20W. Having installed the KD8KEC v1.061 firmware to deal with keying issues, and when combined with a good audio filter, I am very happy operating CW with the uBITx. I am straight key only so it would be good to hear from some paddle-key operators. I use a W3NQN passive LC audio CW filter built from a kit many years ago and sadly not available at present, but there are now many analogue and digital filter options out there to try. I am about to try the SOTAbeams Laserbeam digital audio filter, which comes with great reviews.
When I first assembled my uBITx I reported to my local club that it wasn't a viable CW rig. However, I now enjoy CW operating with my upgraded uBITx, especially as I've been able to customise the software. Last weekend I spent some time working CW in the YU and MM DX contests on the 40m and 20m bands (with my NorCal Doublet antenna). Whilst 47 contacts from on-off operating over the 2 days doesn't break any records, I had an enjoyable time hunting them down when I did go on the air. Significantly, I don't think I'd have done any better with my TenTec 579 (a nice very analog CW rig) running QRP and I much prefer operating the uBITx rather than my YouKits EK-1B or IC-703 QRP rigs because of the customisation I've been able to achieve.
The great strength of the uBITx is that provides a really good basis for experimentation and development, as well as operation, at a bargain price and I'm finding it is a real education when allied to all the support you can get from this Group. It is a true ham's rig and is fine for CW, with an audio filter, once the stock firmware has been upgraded. I am also very happy that I've had an introduction to programming the Arduino, something I'd been thinking about for years but had never taken the step.
Hope this helps.
73 Chris
G3SQU
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Arv, I'm not using the carbon button,? "The original carbon element was bad so I put in a electret mic and MAX9812 module board"? See the picture of the button holder.
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In continuation, i suppose that except salvaged ones , we may not be able to get carbon mics now a days.
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 11:34 PM, Mvs Sarma <mvssarma@...> wrote: Simple . It works with a DC bias and resistance variation of carbon granules packed in a mic? convey the speech content.
?Only diffiernce is that the bandwidth would be much less as against electret or dynamic mics. regards sarma ?vu3zmv
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Simple . It works with a DC bias and resistance variation of carbon granules packed in a mic? convey the speech content.
?Only diffiernce is that the bandwidth would be much less as against electret or dynamic mics. regards sarma ?vu3zmv
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 11:28 PM, Arv Evans <arvid.evans@...> wrote: Lee
It will be interesting to see, and hear, how that T-32 carbon button microphone
works with the BITX.? It may need some attenuation because carbon microphones
usually output a fairly high level signal.? who knows...we could be seeing a new
trend of using carbon microphones for their inherent frequency limiting and high
output.?
Arv? K7HKL
_._
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alphaindia4oscartango
Jonathan
Lee