My BitX/40 Project

I ordered the BitX/40 SSB 40 meter transceiver kit from HFsignals (Ashhar Farhan VU2ESE) and paid the extra for DHL shipping. I ordered on Sunday the 7th of May, and it arrived at my QTH in Australia from Hyderabad, India on Friday 12th of May.

So, I set to work on assembly and modifications. I have used a 20×4 lcd screen instead of the 16×2 one that came in the kit, installed a MUCH bigger heatsink on the IRF510 PA MOSFET, set up TX sense for readout on the screen, a 10-turn precision pot for better tuning, selectable LSB/USB (this was already in amunters code I modified for my purposes but wasn’t in VU2ESE’s original code) and built but haven’t connected yet ND6T’s forward and reflected power meter and adapted his code to work with amunters raduino code.

BitX/40 in LSB mode

It is mounted in a Jaycar aluminium case (which I butchered with an angle grinder for the screen cutout). I will probably tidy up the hole or build a better case one day.

I am using a Baofeng hand mic for mic and ptt, butchered somewhat with the kit mic put in, and speaker disconnected.

BitX/40 in USB ready for WSPR

Still to do is a voltage step-up for the PA section for more power output and some other work I haven’t decided on yet.

I will continue updating as I go.

-VK3DAN

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