$129 5 band SSB/CW rig

JohnFreeman

The bane of my existence
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Got this put together in a box over the Tday break. It's a uBitX that's semi-assembled from an outfit in India. The enclosure was extra (20-30$, I can't recall) and make boxing it simple.

I'm mostly a CW op . First QSO was with a guy in Orlando on 40, we had a nice long ragchew. Next quick contacts were on 20m w Italy and Russia. Nice sensitive receiver. The lack of ALC will be the first thing I update. Power out is about 8W

This is sold as an open-source project and there's a TON of updates both HW and firmware, making it a really nice hackable rig. I did have to rewire the keyer jack and I'd since bundled the wiring so it's not quite so ugly.

Fun stuff. It's powered by arduino. The next upgrade will be to wire the external USB jack to allow convenient updates.

uBIT.jpg
 
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@JohnFreeman do you know the Knighlites? QRP group, mostly CW, in RTP. A subset of them were doing the uBitX radio. Modding the firmware I think.
 
Yes I do! A long time ago I maintained their website ... I didn't know they were messing with the uBitx. There are a LOT of people playing with them though, so it's not surprising. I'll go see if I can still find their website.
73
John
 
Heh, well then, do you remember the SMiTe? I did the PCB layout...
 
I still have my Knight Smite! I checked into the "Knightlite" net more than once with it.

:)

Small world
 
Took the plunge and ordered the full kit v6 today. Will provide updates...

I'm excited. Now I'm looking at linear amp kits... this could get complicated lol
 
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Assembled the ubitx v6 full kit. It was exceedingly simple. Quite frankly the biggest problem I had was double checking that I had it right. I had leftover parts...

They provided far more hardware than needed; and extra wiring for all the unused connections on the main board. If you want to expand you already have the cables.

One thing to watch for that isnt covered in the instructions on the hf signals website... the touch display mounts to the front panel using the shorter screws they provided. If you use the longer ones it will not snug up and M if you keep turning you will break something.

Powered it up without problems. Now I have to hang my off center fed 80-10 meter antenna and try it out.
 
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