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Friday 28 August 2009

M1KTA QRP TCVR (was HB-1A - KX1 Clone)





The control project is a little way off complete and circuits are still all over the place and got to pull it together into a single PCB but I seem to be getting there.
Once complete and if I turn it into a kit and anyone interested in building I will try and obtain a few more of the 2x40 displays. But back light versions. I have to find some foil for a backlight yet for the current version, I did have fun modifying an old 2x16 without back light using 1mm perspex and 4 blue LED which worked!

I was running out of space on a 2x16 LCD and a menu scroll etc was a nightmare to implement so remembered the 2x40 displays from W8DIZ and gave them a go.

Anyway this is the mock up (I have used a EasiYo yoghurt cardboard box as it is a great size for the final rig) of the display and panel, not added the push bottons or rotary controllers yet. There are 12 buttons and 5 rotary controls. I bought 10 push button rotary encoders off ebay for <£1 each so some might be combined.
The LCD shows:

Top row:

My callsign, VFO status, Frequency (+ means RIT active above TX), C= CW, The measured VSWR is 1:1.76 and DSP is enabled

Second Row:

RX signal is +40dB, the enabled option switches (should not have VFO A and VFO B shown should be one or the other!), PSU voltage, output power level set (the S meter area will do duty as a modulation meter on TX), IF crystal filter enabled although I need to implement the BW as using a variable band width crystal filter 400Hz to 2.8KHz the power output area will double up to display the BW on TX.
Some options can appear to be seleceted even though on RX. This a bug in the firmware.

There seems to be plenty of extra 'LCD real estate' left. If need it might remove the M1KTA bit too. The little man to the right of M1KTA is aa bit of fun and is the identifier for rig tuning speed. He runs from left to right and back again. The faster he runs the faster the tuning. If LOCK is enabled he stands still and there is a stop sign. Here is a little video of it, normal, lock applied and then fast tune.


The ticks will be on the panel but the LCD show which controls are active, I used character $FF to display the option if enabled which is just a filled block, I might change this and the list.
The ticks show (similar to K2 list):

Noise Blanker
Antenna 2 Active
Pre Amp (Simple BF988 thing)
Attenuator (10dB attenuator - not rocket science)
VFO A
VFO B (shouldn't show both VFO on.. must be a bug!)
RIT obvious
XIT obvious

I expect I will add split too

On the RHS (a hang on from 2x16LCD and I will move these are the two options for:
DSP - Meaning DSP
FIL - Meaning Filter (should add bandwidth in the power area on TX)

Modes are C (cw), S (ssb) maybe U (usb), l (lsb), P (psk).

The rig is AD9851 DDS with DC RX standard NE602, Crystal IF and/or dsPIC DSP and LM386 chain. TX is direct from DDS (CW) or SSB rig using a combination of ideas from KK7B, KD1JV, G4GXO etc... to be honest what worked and I had components for.

I think I can have RX different to TX but not implementeted it.

When works will also add isolated audio outputs for computer connections and possibly SD card recording capabilities.

The original idea was to create a HB-1A/KX1 clone but I added SSB and PSK.

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