Re: VARA HF digital on BitX
Looking for the Milspec. Free demo, throttled version. Full speed firmware for $69. Compare that to P3.
Experimentation is the only way find out if it will work. Peak to average ratio ? Looking for that also. Not a problem for other radios.
Many other digital modes work with the BitX radios.
KC9SGV
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On Feb 25, 2018, at 2:09 PM, Gordon Gibby < ggibby@...> wrote:
I haven¡¯t been able to figure out how much this cost yet. Does anyone know?
Which Milspec? Is it published??
I didn¡¯t watch all the videos but are BER curves published for a channel? Performance on an HF simulator available maybe.?
Is the peak to average ratio a problem for the bitx final?
So many tones.
wm6h
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Re: BITX QSO Afternoon/Night, Sunday, February 25, 3PM/7PM Local Time, 7277 kHz in North America, 7177 kHz elsewhere
Wicked QSB today and what I'm calling a "woodpecker" at times. Had QSO's with WA2FZW John 44 in NJ, NX2U Mike on his uBITX 44 in TN and N3FJZ Rick 59 in MD on his home built BITX manhatton build. Excellent audio from all stations - would be nice if prop. was better with my QRN.Mind you there must be another QSO party on - lots of splatter all of a sudden.Still on 7.277 MHz @ 2050 hrs zulu.
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Re: Looking for Completely Functional Dual-Band 20/(17/15/10/6) Meter QRP Rig with SSB/PSK
#bitx20help
With all that said about the EFHW's, I agree with David that building a 40/20 dipole
with traps is a good solution.? Especially if not interested in spending $140.
I'd start with a straight 40 meter dipole, get some use out of it before?adding the traps.
The traps will require some careful measurements with appropriate gear to get right.?
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Re: BITX QSO Afternoon/Night, Sunday, February 25, 3PM/7PM Local Time, 7277 kHz in North America, 7177 kHz elsewhere
I heard Mike from Tennesee?NX2U great. hearing others, cant pick out their call sign. I'm?located?in Virginia Beach, VA
On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 3:01 PM, John P <j.m.price@...> wrote: I'm on 7277 @ 3PM. Anyone else on?
--
John - WA2FZW
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Re: BITX QSO Afternoon/Night, Sunday, February 25, 3PM/7PM Local Time, 7277 kHz in North America, 7177 kHz elsewhere
I heard Mike from Tennesee?NX2U great, he was on the ubitx. hearing others, cant pick out their call sign. I'm?located?in Virginia Beach, VA
On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 3:01 PM, John P <j.m.price@...> wrote: I'm on 7277 @ 3PM. Anyone else on?
--
John - WA2FZW
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Re: VARA HF digital on BitX
I haven¡¯t been able to figure out how much this cost yet. Does anyone know?
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Show quoted text
Which Milspec? Is it published??
I didn¡¯t watch all the videos but are BER curves published for a channel? Performance on an HF simulator available maybe.?
Is the peak to average ratio a problem for the bitx final?
So many tones.
wm6h
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Re: Looking for Completely Functional Dual-Band 20/(17/15/10/6) Meter QRP Rig with SSB/PSK
#bitx20help
David, I suggest you look into the EFHW-4010 rather than just tell us
about some other end-fed you had trouble with.
I have the EFHW-8010 and have measured an EFHW-4010.??
SWR is as reported in the QST review posted on the myantennas.com website,
looking good on all major ham bands and reasonable on the WARC bands.
The SWR goes quite high between bands, showing it really is tuned and not just a 50 ohm resistor as some antennas are.
For packing, an EFHW has the advantage that not much coax is needed, the end of the antenna is near the operating position.
Those few feet of coax are all that are needed with regards to a counterpoise, as the antenna is near resonance.
An end-fed half-wave can be resonant at all multiples of the fundamental, not just odd multiples as the dipole is.
Radiation patterns on an end-fed are about the same as a dipole.
An end-fed doesn't need much support in the middle of the antenna wire, where a dipole has all that coax weighing it down.
The trick with an end-fed is getting the matching unit correct across many bands, and I think the EFHW* antennas do this.
We had a discussion here previously about some of the digital modes where automatic bandswitching was required.
That fell into a long discussion of how best to build an auto-tuner.
The EFHW-8010 seems a much more elegant solution.
Of course, a trapped 4 element beam with rotator would have a better radiation pattern.
If they could get that down to something that fits into a backpack sidepocket, that would be magical!
Once the weather clears, I might try setting up a 40 meter moxon with vertical polarization,?
supported from a single point at the middle of the top element so I can easily turn it.
Common mode chokes should allow the coax to be routed conveniently down?from the
middle of the side element to the middle of the bottom element, then to the ground.
If done with wire and telescoping fiberglass poles, that might actually be packable.
Jerry, KE7ER
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On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 11:25 am, N8DAH wrote:
One thing I would suggest is be careful with "magic" antenna's if its to good to be true it normally is. I once bought a par-end fed good for 10-40 with no tuner.....it was the biggest waste of 75$ I have ever spent swr on 40m was well over 4:1. Building a antenna like the trapped 40/20 from qrpkits.com is a much better option for small low weight Ant.
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Re: VARA HF digital on BitX
Which Milspec? Is it published??
I didn¡¯t watch all the videos but are BER curves published for a channel? Performance on an HF simulator available maybe.?
Is the peak to average ratio a problem for the bitx final?
So many tones.
wm6h
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Re: BITX QSO Afternoon/Night, Sunday, February 25, 3PM/7PM Local Time, 7277 kHz in North America, 7177 kHz elsewhere
I'm on 7277 @ 3PM. Anyone else on?
--
John - WA2FZW
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Re: #ubitx How to interpret serial number
#ubitx
Hi Craig,
My ?BITX,?has F21/1 on it.
I orderd 9 december 2017 and received the ?BITX, via India Post, on 30 december 2017 :-)
´¡²Ô»å°ù¨¦
PA3EIV?
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I wonder if the output level should approach "line" level. If so, a preamp like this one.?
On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 8:02 PM, Raj vu2zap <rajendrakumargg@...> wrote: Has to work and work it does. I proposed this for Bitx40 as I needed more gain for my Yaesu mic.
?in uBitx it is possible to put a preset to control mic gain.
Raj
At 24/02/2018, you wrote:
>Dave wrote,
>
>"Modifications to use a Dynamic Mic.
>Referring to the uBITX Schematic.? The Gain of the Mic PreAmp is controlled by R63 in the Emitter of Q6 to C62/R64.? It basically decouples the audio bypass of R64 by C62 to limit gain for the high output Electret Mics.? Replacing R63 with a Zero Ohm resistor and putting a 10K at the Mic input should allow a Dynamic Mic to work now with a Mic Gain Control.? Also R60 that supplies Mic BIAS to the Electret-Condenser Mic needs to be removed.? If there is not enough Gain still, you might have to reduce the value of R64 to maybe 470 Ohms or so.? If you cannot look at your transmitted signal on a scope at least listen to your audio on another receiver to verify you are not causing distortion.
>
>More Gain for the Electret Mic
>To simply get more gain with an Electret Mic you might try dropping another 47 Ohm chip resistor on top of the existing R63 by soldering another chip resistor one end at a time.
>
>Dave WI6R"
>
>Has anyone actually performed this mod?? Does it work?
>
>--
>73, W9KJO
>Walter
-- Michael Shreeve N6GRG
15901 Cloverdale Road
Anderson, CA 96007
530-410-8678
"Don't worry about a thing, 'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!" -Bob Marley
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Re: Looking for Completely Functional Dual-Band 20/(17/15/10/6) Meter QRP Rig with SSB/PSK
#bitx20help
They are not bad 1st radios for HT's. You can find a good kenwood or icom for under 200$ on QRZ.com. The Kenwood TH-F6A is a great radio used they are about 180-200$ the general coverage RX is great to have.
One thing I would suggest is be careful with "magic" antenna's if its to good to be true it normally is. I once bought a par-end fed good for 10-40 with no tuner.....it was the biggest waste of 75$ I have ever spent swr on 40m was well over 4:1. Building a antenna like the trapped 40/20 from qrpkits.com is a much better option for small low weight Ant.
--
David
?N8DAH
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Re: VARA HF digital on BitX
Bernie,
I had some time to look at VARA last night, I wasn¡¯t able to connect to their listed gateways but I might try again. Propagation was great last 2 Days then it rained last night in NY and everything went silent on 80 meters. ?
It setup pretty easily. I already have the necessary cables and have a solution for the laptop I use with a USB soundcard that I use for digital radio purposes. The program worked with a USB to serial dongle I have that controls the PTT and the program was set to output to the USB sound card. For receiving the signal to decode I am using my panadapter and HDSDR. It¡¯s my first time trying this method but HDSDR connects to my radio via tcpip and a SDR dongle hosted on a Raspberry Pi 3. HDSDR¡¯s audio is routed to a Virtual Audio Cable and picked up by VARA.?
I use my system this way because my radio is across the room from where my laptop is, near the couch on the coffee table. Heck I even have an ethernet cable extending my microphone so I can have it next to me. Oh the CAT to radio is Bluetooth also. Jus trying to minimize wires running across the bedroom, I probably have the most awkward shack ever lol. Just wanted to give you a little background on why my system is set up that way.?
I noticed you have to pay for VARA. WinLink already has an option to use Winmor link and has some nice propagation support and good list of gateways you can connect to. It works pretty smoothly too so I¡¯m not sure how VARA would measure up to that to do some Winlink unless the user really had a need or interest to use it. I would still like to see it connect to an available gateway. I¡¯ll try again today.?
Joe KD2NFC?
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On Feb 24, 2018, at 8:39 PM, Joe Puma < kd2nfc@...> wrote: If you want to try another method, I had success with a raspberry pi running Dire Wolf a software TNC and I am able to control a uhv/vhf Radio with and I used a ft-840 with success for winlink on HF. ?I ran the RMS express from a Windows PC and connect to the Rpi/direwolf via tcpip and used the Winmore mode with ease on HF. ?
I had a Bitx40 on a raspberry pi already with wsjtx and can do ptt with a com port but now that ubitx has CAT control it makes it even easier. ?
On Feb 24, 2018, at 8:29 PM, KC9SGV < kc9sgv@...> wrote:
Hi All,
Have a look at VARA.
It is a new Milspec digital mode adjusted for the U.S. HF (or VHF) ham bands.
Meaning it satisfies all the current FCC legal requirements for HF digital.
< 300 baud, < 2.4 KHz bandwidth.
52 Carriers in orthogonally spaced subcarriers.
Multiple OS platforms.
Thruput speeds comparable with P3.....
Full Winlink functionality using the Winlink Express radio email client in Telnet mode.
"VARA is a High Performance HF modem based on OFDM modulation. VARA Modem, brings state of the art Military grade technology to new and existing HF data.
Introduces a new standard of technology available for Amateur and Commercial use. Designed for operation within a SSB Bandwidth of 2400 Hz."
(Scroll down)
Who would be the first to run VARA on a BitX radio ?
Please post the results (with pictures) here.
?
Bernie,
KC9SGV
?
?
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Re: Schematic Drawing Software
Can you post a download URL for these?
Jack, W8TEE
From: Syed Faisal Akber <faisal@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2018 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: [BITX20] Schematic Drawing Software
Also, Digikey released parts and footprints for kicad.
73, Faisal VA3SFA From: Ken KM4NFQ Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2018 07:48 Subject: Re: [BITX20] Schematic Drawing Software |
Re: Kicad
Does it have Sparkfun and Adafruit libraries, or can they be imported? Those companies make a lot of small gadgets that can be used as parts of larger projects, if a 'footprint' can be made?
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Re: Looking for Completely Functional Dual-Band 20/(17/15/10/6) Meter QRP Rig with SSB/PSK
#bitx20help
I think I'll need two radios. An HF & HT. For a U/VHF HT I'm considering the . It has 4.5 stars at Amazon. I realize that some experienced HAMs despise these rigs. Yet, for a first HT to learn with, they seem like a good deal.
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Re: #ubitx How to interpret serial number
#ubitx
My uBitx has "n 828/2" on it
--
Jason Schlager
KM6AUS
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Re: Looking for Completely Functional Dual-Band 20/(17/15/10/6) Meter QRP Rig with SSB/PSK
#bitx20help
When "trimming" the ends of your wire dipole, try just folding them back
tightly against the wire.? This allows you to put back some wire if you
accidentally remove too much.?
Another alternative to use might be soldering a short wire "dropper" on
the end of your dipole and trim that for frequency.? If you cut too much
off you can just replace the short dropper instead of the whole wire.
Arv? K7HKL
_._
On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 10:34 AM, Jerry Gaffke via Groups.Io <jgaffke@...> wrote: When we set up a single band wire dipole antenna, it needs to be cut to the correct length.
This optimal length can vary based on wire diameter, insulation if any, distance to other objects, ...
So it's usually cut a bit too long, and then "tuned" by measuring the resonant frequency
and then judiciously trimming the ends a bit.??
Though I got by when starting out (no swr meter or network analyzer) with just a tape measure.
Once set up, you can drive the antenna from your rig without using a "tuner",
which is a separate piece of gear to match the 50 ohm transceiver to whatever the antenna happens to be.
Jerry, KE7ER
On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 09:15 am, Mark wrote:
I don't need to tune a piece of electrical wire for a single band.
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Re: Looking for Completely Functional Dual-Band 20/(17/15/10/6) Meter QRP Rig with SSB/PSK
#bitx20help
Dave,
Yes, for tiny portable it seems CW is the best bet.
Right now I'm having a look at backpackable transceivers at qrpver.com. The QRPver-1 v.3 & the QRPver-1 v.2 are both PSK/JT65 rigs.
I originally dismissed these because they are sent from the Ukraine. Yet, they might be an option for me. They have good reviews on the website.
The v.2 is only 4x2.5x1". Then I'd just need a battery pack, antenna, & something to connect to the USB port on my laptop. Or, I maybe I could connect this to my android phone or tablet.
This might be a nice first rig.
Mark
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Re: Looking for Completely Functional Dual-Band 20/(17/15/10/6) Meter QRP Rig with SSB/PSK
#bitx20help
A good source of wire
for a dipole is to buy a 250 roll of #14 Stranded at Home
Depot or other building supply.
You can get it by the
foot, but a much better deal to get the whole roll Black or
White.
Too start cut 2 - 34'
pieces for 40M?? You can use PVC pipe fittings to make center
and insulators (also Home Depot).
Don't fall for the
copper coated steel wire sold as antenna wire.? Yes it is
strong!? I snaps up in a mess, trying to go
back in the roll.? It
is really hard to handle.? If you must, it is just Mig Welding
wire, buy a roll at Harbor Freight.
It is cheap and will
work.
73's
Mike, WA6ISP
On 2/25/2018 9:34 AM, Jerry Gaffke via
Groups.Io wrote:
When we set up a
single band wire dipole antenna, it needs to be cut to the correct
length.
This optimal length can vary based on wire diameter, insulation if
any, distance to other objects, ...
So it's usually cut a bit too long, and then "tuned" by measuring
the resonant frequency
and then judiciously trimming the ends a bit.??
Though I got by when starting out (no swr meter or network
analyzer) with just a tape measure.
Once set up, you can drive the antenna from your rig without using
a "tuner",
which is a separate piece of gear to match the 50 ohm transceiver
to whatever the antenna happens to be.
Jerry, KE7ER
On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 09:15 am, Mark wrote:
I don't need to tune a piece of electrical wire for a
single band.
--
Mike Hagen, WA6ISP
10917 Bryant Street
Yucaipa, Ca. 92399
(909) 918-0058
PayPal ID "MotDog@..."
Mike@...
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Re: Transverter for uBitx
No. I use the TS520S to drive the transverters. Regards Lawrence 9H1AV
On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 6:04 PM, K9HZ <bill@...> wrote: You have a TS530S transverter output on your uBITx? ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch ¨C K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner ¨C Operator Villa Grand Piton ¨C J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: Like us on Facebook! ? Moderator ¨C North American QRO Yahoo Group. ? email:? bill@... ? ? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lawrence Galea
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2018 10:57 AM ? I haven't used the attenuator board and drive them from my TS520S transverter output. ? On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 4:16 PM, K9HZ <bill@...> wrote: Yikes!? My IPhone keeps ¡°helping me out¡± with word ?and phrase substitution¡ this note should have read: ? I¡¯m thinking you would forgo the attenuator and drive it right off RV1¡ I have now modified my radio to switch in different RV1 pots basis the band selected¡ so, in my case, I just add another relay and pot for the trans-verter input.? There is no point making additional power in the RF chain just to attenuate it. ? Sheesh!? Ok, some of it was me. ? ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch ¨C K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner ¨C Operator Villa Grand Piton ¨C J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: Like us on Facebook! ? Moderator ¨C North American QRO Yahoo Group. ? email:? bill@... ? ? ? I¡¯m thinking you would forgo the attenuator and drive it right off RV1¡ I have not modified my radio to switch in different RV1 pots basis the band selected¡ so I just another pot for a different band and over to the transverter.? There is no point making more power in the RF chain just to attenuate it. ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ ? Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch ¨C K9ZC Staunton, Illinois ? Owner ¨C Operator Villa Grand Piton ¨C J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: Like us on Facebook! ? Moderator ¨C North American QRO Yahoo Group. ? email:? bill@... ? ? ? They are Bug bang for the buck. And pretty much arrive as promised. There is one decent YouTube video worth a look, which mentions distortion increasing over a few watts. The other practical problem may be using their switching attenuator board with a uBITX, as that board wants to see 5 watts.? My uBITX is about half that on 10 but there is a pot on the board with some variability.? I haven¡¯t dialed mine in on transmit yet with because I¡¯ve been driving them with a KX2 hacked to go to 32 MHz and with low enough drive without using an attenuator - I¡¯m using the uBITX as a satellite receiver for now -but I¡¯m hoping to use two BITX with these transverters as a cheap lightweight backpack full duplex sat rig. 73 Scott Make something good happen!
On Feb 24, 2018, at 1:37 AM, Joe Puma <kd2nfc@...> wrote:
I¡¯m thinking about adding this to my build, has anyone attempted installing a transverter? ?
? ? Sent from for Windows 10 ?
?
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Andre Berwald PA3EIV
Michael Shreeve
N8DAH
Mark K0ABD
Jason Schlager