开云体育

I am a complete newbie so it was only a matter of time before I broke something good. I have a V5 uBitx running CEC 1.22 software with a 3.5" Nextion screen. I had everything working fairly well. I heard a CQ from Norway last weekend and I am in Michigan. Anyway I kept trying to tune it a little better. The next time I turned the radio on I was way out of adjustment. I cannot get it to tune back in. I downloaded the CEC1.22 and now my BFO reads 11.997.000. when everything was working it was at 11.053.400. Better late than never I am now using uBitx manager and when I read from the radio it shows the BFO as 11.053.400. Is there a way to work out of this? I do have the uBitx file if it helps.

Thanks
KE8EYM

press the encoder and hold it pressed, Power on,
choose factory defaults

I gave that a try and it doesn't give me the option to reset it. It opens up with the "Set Tune Step" menu.

Welcome to the world of fixing your own radio!? I had a very similar problem when I first loaded the CEC v1.122, I was confused by the calibration and BFO settings.? You probably lost your calibration when you loaded the new CEC firmware, so you need to recalibrate, and the calibration method is not the same as the stock firmware.??

Likewise your firmware load lost your BFO setting.? I also was confused by the default BFO setting of 11.997.000 in the CEC firmware.? That's just a default number, and it belongs with the older crystal filter (which was 12MHz).? Your v5 has the 11.059MHz crystals -- you can verify this by looking at the number on the cans, the ladder filter is the line of little oval shiny stainless steel crystals.? Put your 11.053.400 number in for BFO.

Good luck!
--Ron
K0EIA

Aha, I missed that you already have the uBitx manager.? It really simplifies your calibration work.? You can put in a number like 131630 for master calibration and that should get you close (that's what my master calibration is set at).

--Ron
K0EIA

and lastly -- sorry to not get this all into one message, hopefully it makes sense -- my BFO setting is 11.055.500.? The boards may vary some in production but if you put my numbers in for your master cal and BFO you should start hearing something, it should be close.

--Ron
K0EIA

Thanks Ron, I will give it a shot when I get home. I also didn't do the CECv1.122 properly so I am working on fixing that. Actually I am enjoying this a lot. A month ago I knew absolutely nothing about any of this but now, well, I know a little bit. I bought this to learn on and I have definitely been doing that. I have used a Mac for 10 years and it seems like almost everything to do with these radios needs windows os so I have that bit of a curve ball as well. Thanks again for the reply. I will let you know if it works.

Bill
KE8EYM

Well I am getting closer. I was able to listen and understand a conversation. I am wondering if part of my problem is that conditions aren't very good. I can't get WWV dialed in. I can't even hear the ticks.?

I do still have to get the New software version to work. I fixed the flag and complied it but it didn't seem to load right.

Bill
KE8EYM

Hi Bill!
I think you loaded the wrong version of the firmware. It looks like your firmware is for the older versions. Did you use a hex file and uploader, or you compiled the sketch yourself?
Look again at what you uploaded. If it was intended for older versions it will not work good on V5. V5 has a different way of switching the low pass filters.
73,
--
Ion

VA3NOI

Hi Ion,
I have CECver1.122 Loaded on my v5 board. I thought that was the latest. The file was the .hex for from his website.


Bill
KE8EYM

Bill,

You do have the correct firmware, as I was one of maybe the first half-dozen test rats [with appreciation to Dr Lee] at the release time.

11.055.500 is as good place to begin. Mine's dialed in at around 11.054.850 so there is going to be a little wiggle room.? I'm going to offer a few points that may or may not be in the virtual instruction book; those that are, bear repeating. Please do them:

1. After making any change in the BFO number, use the mike PTTto store it and...

2.... turn the radio power off for ten seconds or more.

3. Obey rule #2 every time, even if you land on the same BFO number again.

4. Subsequent to a BFO change and power-off cycling, go and tune in a moderate-level QSO. Not dial-bending but not some SOTA group 3 continents away, either. Then, select the opposite side and tune a little, see if you can manage to tune the same qso to a listenable quality on the wrong sideband; if you can do that, you need to tune again and go another xx.xxx.100 or more away. I can't tell you which way, but set it and cycle off the power again. If it's better, great. If it's worse, go the other way from your starting, baseline number until happy.

5. When you get signal reports, or if you can monitor your output yourself, try further BFO settings that yield a higher/tinier voice rather than warm, lower voice tones. Higher vocals punch through noise better and with 5-12 watts output, you'll want every edge you can muster.

6. Frequency calibration: I prefer to do this regardless of CEC firmware version - Using a redundant rig, find WWV/WWVH on 5, 10, or 15mHz in the AM mode. Then, find the same station with your uBitx and leave the dial on 5.000 or 10.000 or etc. Just do it.? Also, set the uBitx tuning steps to 10hz.? Now most of the time, WWV runs a tone that's obvious as a heart attack interrupted with one-second "toc"s. I don't know the tone freq (1000hz? 1200hz?) but that's irrelevant. Put the uBitx in Calibrate mode and set the radio's apparent volumes to about equal... not loud, not whisper soft either. Whereas other directions call for a zero-beat, we are going to listen for a hetrodyne beat. Adjust the uBitx so that it receives the same noooooote/toc/noooooote/toc/noooooote at the same pitch as heard on the redundant radio.? Yeah, you"ll pass by a textbook zero-beat in the process, though, aligning the musical tone is more accurate. If one radio's tone isn't "toc"ing , you're uBitx is lined up on the carrier and not the note. Find the note, yet, if they go into some weather report or something like that, you'll have to wait. When you get super-close to the two sources beating against each other, you'll hear a "wobbling" of the notes in between the two radios. The cycle rate of that "wobble" is quite literally the difference in Hertz or cycles between WWV's atomic clock and your uBitx dial! Talk about accuracy.... With only 10Hz resolution on the tuner, you can get within 5Hz, in theory. I'm typically 2 to 4 off, as it happens.? When close, press the mike PTT and store this setting.

7. Cycle off the power to the uBitx.

8. Power it back on, and reset the dial to WWV. It should come up just as sharp and close as it did in the calibration stage. If not, did you store it first with a mike press before cycling off & on the power?

And - yes, I align and calibrate stuff for a living (just not radios, now) and also help write training and SOP's with a state agency; please bear with the dry, direct writing style!?

Please try these methods and report back, OK?


73,

Ted
K3RTA

Ted, thanks for posting that bfo calabration. Looks very similar to the old R388 instructions used by myself back in the early '70's. Somewhat tedious but always checked out against primary standards maintained by our second order calibration vans. Their standards were maintained by our Barstow,Ca. Repair & standard's depot.
This always makes me wonder how often we as hams check our "standards” like say a Bird meter or in my case, a TS-352 scraped by Barstow, then repaired by me and converted from BA-31's at 4.5 Volts each to common over-the-counter battery’s for resistance measurement. Back then each item had a cal due date from the next senior shop.
Also, thanks to all of you for getting me back into repair and programming along with the Arduino world introduction,& safety, smt useage, tips about many other thinks like Linux, low power antennas, & QRP operation..

Frank, KJ5WI?

Ted,
Thank you for the reply. This is how I have been tuning (steps 1-5) and I did have it pretty good at first but I didn't realize you had to cycle off to set it. The first night I heard someone from Norway like they were sitting next to me. The next morning things were messed up again and I couldn't even pick up WWV. I was all over the dial trying to pick it up and I think I got way out in the weeds. I did download uBitx manager and put everything back were it was supposed be I got it to where I could understand speech again. I do think it could be tuned in better but I still am not sure what the zero beat should sound like. I have watched a bunch of different videos on it but still not really sure. I don't have another HF radio so I can't use the redundant radio idea. I do tune it more by the musical note and it has gotten me close.

I am am new to HF and building radios (uBitx is my first step in). There is a big learning curve on what to listen for, how to best tune and even propagation. I like this group because even though it is for the uBitx I have gleamed a lot of general radio knowledge as well. The people on here are very will to help out. ?

I will try out your suggestions tonight and see if I can get things dialed in a little better and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again for the help

Bill
KE8EYM

Bill,

Zero 'beat' is a bit of a misnomer as it's really a matter of listening for nothing rather than listening for something.

To understand, let's review the similarities between hearing SSB and CW:? For SSB, the radio inserts a carrier frequency at exceedingly low value & at dial frequency.? This mixes with the received wideband material and comes out sounding like true radio.? For CW, this weak, injected carrier causes a hetrodyne or difference frequency between the added dial carrier and the on/off switched signal you're trying to receive from the outside world.

Now, recall that if you tube for code at too low an audio freq rather than for the traditional 600 to 800 Hz, you can make it so low as not to hear it at all. You might hear a presence, maybe not. Well, you can also tune in an AM broadcast such as WWV and make it's carrier disappear just like you can make a CW signal fade to nothingness (think: Carrier Wave rather than Continuous Wave for a second).

When you do that to an AM station while using a SSB radio or with CW - that is, make the carrier imperceptable/disappear - that's finding the zero beat.

If you had a different model of radio and could swap RX sidebands, you'd have been able to count the dial increments it takes both ways before you reach a personally-subjective detection of the carrier note again. We can't do that on the ubitx during the procedure BUT we can check it that way afterwards. ? Depending on your hearing, it should be 2 or 3 more clicks at 10Hz resolution on the dial, past the lowest you can hear so try that. Save the setting, then re-cycle radio power. Then try listening to WWV on both sidebands one after the other and center your dial on it. If you are more than 5hz off, then try again and change that highly-subjective zero-beat point until you are satisfied with any remaining yet unavoidable, minor error.

Oh, and as a reminder - that local (radio-produced), weak injected signal that helps pick out SSB and CW is called a Beat Frequency Oscillator....? BFO, for short.

And now you know why the? BFO gets set first, before dial calibration procedure gets done.


73,
Ted
K3RTA

....and he fare (sic) prefers Linux.? ?

Thanks for all the help everyone. I got it working pretty good and I can hear conversations very clearly.?

Thanks again
Bill