|
BTW¡ the new stack of RF Boards here¡ have the following updates: Removed all of the MF stuff but left the jumpers to CLK0 and CLK1 so that they could be driven from something else or checked with no load. MF done in software now. Added a cap C74 at the junction of L7 and Y1 VDD. This was inadvertently missed in all versions. If anything, cleans up the noise floor a little. Changed U106 to a AD8599, and U107 to a OPA2209 (better S/N by at least 20 db). Better parts, but the previous parts will work (Identical footprints) in a pinch too with higher S/N. U21 pin 27 now not connected to anything. Holes behind the PE4302/PE4312 attenuators to make them easier to solder. This is not intended as a replacement for existing V12.6 RF boards¡ but rather convenience upgrades if you need a new RF board. I think the RF board is incredible. It rivals many of the commercial radios I have in my radio room. Lots of people here and all over the world helped with prototyping, building, suggestions and insight, and testing to make this so. Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch ¨C K9ZC Staunton, Illinois Owner ¨C Operator Villa Grand Piton ¨C J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: www.VillaGrandPiton.com Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. email: bill@...
|
|
The group
2
I've sent a message several times asking about the digital post processor that was in the book "microcontroller s for amateur radio" and have gotten no response so no need for me to belong to the group.... Steve
|
|
T41 V12 Boards and K9HZ Kits in stock
3
I¡¯m starting to get T41 V12 boards and other kits back in stock. I have a shipment of 100+ boards of each type for the T41 showing up on Friday. Two new boards and kits that will work with the T41 are 1) a dual concentric encoder board (two encoders in one for volume and RF gain, etc.), and 2) A 20W RF Attenuator KIT to be used for calibration and for predistortion elimination. Meanwhile, here is what I have as of today (all plus shipping): BOARD IN STOCK COST Main V12 0 $ 1.18 RF V12 23 $ 1.22 BPF V12 18 $ 0.85 LPF Control V12 0 $ 1.27 LPF Filter V12 1 $ 1.27 LPF Carrier - RLY V12 8 $ 0.45 Front Panel Switch 15 $ 1.40 Front Panel Electronics 13 $ 1.40 Encoder Boards 304 $ 0.25 2nd RX Adapters V12 24 $ 0.68 Teensy Hat Offset V12 94 $ 0.32 ATTiny85 With Latest Code 6 $ 2.50 100W PA Semi-Kit 0 $ - 20W PA Semi-Kit 101 $ 19.28 Fixed RF Attenuator (NEW!) 0 $ - Digital RF Attenuator 61 $ 0.75 20A Reverse Polarity Prot Kit 9 $ 8.99 50A Reverse Polarity Prot Kit 27 $ 9.99 20A Power Distribution Kit 104 $ 5.99 PA Driver Kit (NEW!) 25 $ 6.99 PE4302 Attenuator Chips 14 $ 2.50 LC Meter ? ? VHF-UHF T41 Kit ? ? Dr. William J. Schmidt - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ Owner - Operator Big Signal Ranch ¨C K9ZC Staunton, Illinois Owner ¨C Operator Villa Grand Piton ¨C J68HZ Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. Rent it: www.VillaGrandPiton.com Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. email: bill@...
|
|
No Reply How Come!
2
I have asked for some help and to purchase some boards through this site. I have not seen my posts or have a reply to them. Am I being black balled? If that's the case would someone please let me know. Tom AB9EK
|
|
Hi Everyone, Had some good feedback on the versions 66.1 and 66.3. The attached update fixes the known problems. Fixes include issues with the SSB transmit cal and power levels, which were caused primarily because of improper initial values. I tried these several times and everything appears to work properly. The initial setup should be performed in the following order: 1. Frequency Cal 2. Receive cal 3. Set SSB Power Level to 10W 4. Preliminary SSB PA Power cal to ensure levels are nearly correct 5. Transmit IQ calibration 6. Set CW Power level to 10W 7. CW PA Power level cal 8. Check SSB PA Power Cal. one final time Again, it is best to erase the Teensy to start over with the new EEPRM values and be sure to uncomment line 3163 of the .ino file. Comment out again after the initial download. Other changes were primarily to fix a couple of the increments and to correct the on-screen text in a few spots. A revised instructions PDF will follow. Al AC8GY
|
|
I/O Weirdness
4
Working with the Version 66.9 T41 software. This particular weirdness affects nobody but me.... I use four unused i/o bits to control my homebrew linear amplifier. They tell the amplifier what band the transceiver is on. These bits ( 28,29,30,31 ) were used in the V11 system to control its four-band LPF. There was an 80M pin, a 40M pin etc. They are not used at all in the V12 system. So I hooked them up to some transistor buffers and hence out to the linear. V12 does have internal Yaesu codes in the LPF control card, but they are the wrong polarity. Instead of adding hardware inverters, I just used those other four pins. Now - with the V66.9 software, I am unable to write to those pins! The linear stays at its default - 6M. The reason for that particular default is that it minimizes the risk of transmitting on the wrong band. If you use an LPF that is too high, you run the risk of annoying the FCC. If OTOH you transmit through an LPF that's too low, you run the risk of frying the expensive LDMOS final. I do have protection against that in the linear, but I am a "belt & suspenders" guy... Back to the problem: I have verified that the code to write to those pins is being executed. ALSO, I wrote separate code at the top of loop() to write to them. No joy, no output. BUT - I wrote a throwaway sketch - not a radio at all - to just write to those pins - actually an incrementing count. Yup, they work fine. And the linear cycles through its bands. SO; Something in the code is preventing me from writing those pins. Gotta be one of two things: 1. Something else is writing to them. or 2) Something is pinMode-ing them to INPUTs. Darned if I can find it though. There are some legacy places where those pins are written, but I'm pretty sure I found them all. It has worked on other versions, just not this one. - Jerry, KF6VB
|
|
I am not getting RF out to the 20Wt PA. The RF comes in to J3 on the LPF-Cntl PCB, but the logic is such that RFC is connected to RF1. The RF never gets to J7 (TO 20W PA). The logic of TX_BPF_SEL is putting a high on pin 6 of U3 and U7 and low on pin 4. According to the truth table this connects RFC (P5) to RF1 (P1). Am I missing something? Could I use the RX_BPF_SEL instead of TX_BPF_SEL to control U3 and U7? The amp works fine if I connect J15 (TO BPF) to the amp input. dave, n3ds
|
|
Oscillations on high bands
I just downgraded to V50.0. No oscillation. So it is a software problem. "Ver 063-1-beta" - oscillates. "Ver 066-7-SWR" from 3/5/2025 - oscillates "Ver 065" from 2/20/2025 - oscillates "Ver053" - does NOT oscillate. "Ver050.0" from Oliver 1/20/2025 - does NOT oscillate. "Ver066-9" from Oliver - oscillates. - Jerry, KF6VB On 2025-03-22 13:41, K9HZ wrote: > Its not a hardware problem. The radio has been working fine until > recently when some software mods were made. > > Use some sound deductive reasoning here. This problem did not exist a > month ago with any transceivers that were build. Then work was done > on the software in a mad dash to close it out for the next version of > the T41 book. All of a sudden, there are issues with most/ everyone's > radio. What conclusion and action would you take from that? Bobb > some hardware out of you radio?... or go back and check out an earlier > version of the software? > > DR. WILLIAM J. SCHMIDT - K9HZ J68HZ 8P6HK ZF2HZ PJ4/K9HZ VP5/K9HZ > PJ2/K9HZ VP2EHZ > > Owner - Operator > > Big Signal Ranch - K9ZC > > Staunton, Illinois > > Owner - Operator > > Villa Grand Piton - J68HZ > > Soufriere, St. Lucia W.I. > > Rent it: www.VillaGrandPiton.com [1] > > Moderator: North American QRO Group at Groups.IO. > > Moderator: Amateur Radio Builders Group at Groups.IO. > > email: bill@... > > FROM: [email protected] > <[email protected]> ON BEHALF OF Rick Price via > groups.io > SENT: Saturday, March 22, 2025 3:14 PM > TO: [email protected] > SUBJECT: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] LPF-Control PCB TX Logic at > U3 & U7 > > Oliver, I was having some kind of feedback/oscillation problems a > couple of weeks ago and traced it back to the T/R switch also. The > relays and associated parts all checked out but, when I removed the > 3-"0" ohm resistors that were there in place of the Low Pass Filter > (160M) and inserted the parts for the LPF the problem stopped. I > wanted to go back and remove the filter parts and place just two "0" > ohm parts at c14-c16 and a single cap at c-15 but never did. > Wondering if the oscillation problem boards have the "0" ohm resistors > and not the LPF filter in place. Maybe, I will try it later just > thought I would mention what I had, when you suggested a possible > feedback issue. > > Rick, KN4AIE > > ------------------------- > > FROM: [email protected] > <[email protected]> on behalf of Oliver KI3P via > groups.io <oliver@...> > SENT: Saturday, March 22, 2025 1:40 PM > TO: [email protected] > <[email protected]> > SUBJECT: Re: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] LPF-Control PCB TX Logic at > U3 & U7 > > The situation I think we might have is that both TX_BPF_SEL AND > RX_BPF_SEL are HIGH during SSB transmit. This lets a little bit of the > transmitted signal leak through the TR switch back into the amplifier > input through the BPF selection stage, like this: > > These two lines are controller by GPIO register bank A: > > This register is set by the function call setBPFPath [2]; the code > there looks correct and unchanged. Scanning the code, it all appears > to be correct. Some judiciously placed statements like this will > confirm: > > Debug("Set LPF GPA state: "+String(LPF_GPA_state,DEC)); > > The fix that I implemented (major change to radio layout) to cure the > short that caused the burning smell has created a display freeze > issue, so I'm not able to test this myself right now. > > > > Links: > ------ > [1] http://www.villagrandpiton.com/ > [2] > https://github.com/KI3P/SDTVer066-9/blob/92d058bf13cd11e4f6f7ac35aa1e69b1d91b7c38/SDTVer066-9/LPF_Control_V12.cpp#L139 > [3] /g/SoftwareControlledHamRadio/message/33179 > [4] /mt/111571221/243852 > [5] /g/SoftwareControlledHamRadio/post > [6] /g/SoftwareControlledHamRadio/editsub/243852 > [7] > /g/SoftwareControlledHamRadio/leave/10484476/243852/1943518115/xyzzy
|
|
CW Side tone
6
My CW side tone is very loud, the volume setting in the CW menu does not have any affect. I am using V12 boards and running Ver 50.2. Any ideas on what to look for? Paul M. KC2TVJ
|
|
Tiny Ten Transceiver
15
Hi Group! Maybe you need a few minutes break from the fun of the T41, so let me mention that I put together a SDR TRansceiver using the Teensy 4.1 and associated libraries. It is not intended as a big radio like is talked about here with all the home station stuff, but rather is a carry around, less than 1-lb radio. The whole story is summarized at http://www.janbob.com/electron/TinyTen/TinyTen.htm Enjoy! 73, Bob W7PUA
|
|
Tx-Rx logic on LPF-Control
3
In my efforts to track a PA oscillation problem I noticed that in the SSB mode, the receive solid state switches (U1 & U8 on the LPF-Cntl) do not change state when the PTT is engaged but the transmit SSS's (U3 & U7) do change state. I'm using ver 66.4. In the CW mode, all 4 SSS's change state on key down. I would expect all the switches to change state in CW and SSB so that the BPF is used in Tx and Rx. Am I understanding this correctly? dave, n3ds
|
|
Rob Sherwood rankings??
2
All: I can't seem to find Rob's transceiver ranking list. Anyone have a URL that works? Jack, W8TEE -- Jack, W8TEE
|
|
I removed the Arduino IDE 2.3.4 and reinstalled it along with Teensyduino and the libraries. I compiled SDTVer50.2 and it loaded and ran. Everything worked. Thought problem was fixed so I compiled and loaded SDT Ver66.7. It froze at random points every time I restarted it. I went back to the SDTVer50.2 and recompiled and it froze this time. What's going on? Then I realized that the first time I compiled the SDTVer50.2 I had forgotten to change the compile options to those suggested (Faster with LTO, 528 MHz and Serial). It was set for Faster and 600MHz. I compiled again with the Faster and 600MHz and it ran fine. I tried compiling SDTVer66.1 with Faster and 600MHz. Compile failed with an out of memory message. Tried SDTVer66.1 with Faster with LTO and 528MHz. Compiles but freezes. It ran prior to this, hardware wasn't changed, so I don't know what it takes to run the Ver66 code. Is Arduino IDE 2.3.4 what others are using? 73 to you! 73 Bob W3RDL Virus-free.www.avast.com
|
|
T41 Announcement from PJRC
2
https://www.pjrc.com/sparkfun-to-manufacture-teensy/ -- 73 Greg KF5N
|
|
T41 Locking up again!
7
I went back to W8TEE's Ver 66-3 release and compiled, with no changes. It compiled and loaded and it makes it to the main screen. Serial monitor gets to Setup Complete. Totally frozen, no shut down. Memory Usage on Teensy 4.1: FLASH: code:302212, data:129248, headers:8852 free for files:7686152 RAM1: variables:177600, code:278728, padding:16184 free for local variables:51776 RAM2: variables:462400 free for malloc/new:61888 Seems like I've been here before, so I suspect a library(Display!). What is the correct version of the RA8875 library: Adafruit RA8875 https://github.com/mjs513/RA8875/tree/RA8875_t4 Neither fixes lockup, however the RA8875_4 makes it to the main loop. Nothing has changed hardware wise. Any suggestions? -- 73 Bob W3rdl Virus-free.www.avast.com
|
|
Flex for sale -- sold
My Flex 6400 has found a new home. Jack, W8TEE -- Jack, W8TEE
|
|
The transmit attenuator is working in that the amount of attenuation is able to be adjusted by the setting in the Menu. However at the 0dB attenuation setting I am getting -3dB. I have a 50 ohm load on RF_OUT (J6) on the RF Board. I am testing this on CW and the peak to peak signal (ignoring overshoot) going into the attenuator chip (U12) is 980mV but the peak to peak signal out is only 696mV. Has anyone else measured the performance of the transmit attenuator?
|
|
Hey yall, I've built my boards and have them all hooked up. I've started with receiver checkout, and unlike my V11 which was amazing !, I have a lot of noise, specially on 40M. I'm not in an ideal environment yet, but the behavior is so different than V11. I can pick up very strong CW signals (one!) and a spanish AM broadcast at 7.35 something. So in the process of checking things out, I hooked up my SA to TX out on the RF board and TXed SSB, which looked fine. Then I switched to CW, and the freq was good but when I released the key and the RX returned, I got this. 25MHZ, and 3x, probably higher harmonics too. Square wave! These pop up after the first time I key the TX and remain. I'm running V50.2, metal chassis. This appears in slightly different forms forms all bands, 160M-6M, but the spurs always appear at 25MHz .... I have other integration issues I have to resolve in the mean time, but what's up with this? Thanks Mark KU3O
|
|
All, I have been working on CAT ( remote control ) for the T41. I re-architected it to a data-driven approach that is much cleaner and will be easier to maintain and expand. I have the basics running: read & set the frequency, read & set the volume and mike gain, set the operation mode, make it transmit. It is an emulation of the Kenwood TS-2000. There is a LOT of stuff that we don't do yet. I have given the code to Jack. I hope it winds up in the permanent archive. Right now, I am getting nowhere fast with the next step: piping audio over the USB. With that, we would be able to run digital modes with nothing but a USB cable between the radio and a PC. USB function is selected by the "USB Type" pulldown at the Arduino IDE. There are various combinations of functions, but not the one that we need: two serial ports, plus audio. One serial port for the teensy uploads & Serial printf()s, a second serial port for CAT control, and an audio port. The code that implements these USB functionalities is buried in the Teensy "core" - the actual TeensyDuino code. In my system this is at: c/Users/Jerry/AppData/Local/Arduino15/packages/teensy/hardware/avr/1.59.0/cores/teensy4. The definitions of the USB choices are in usb_desc.h. It's basically a big array of #define's. Lots of sets of #defines, each set in an #elif section. ANYWAY, I hijacked the "USB_TRIPLE_AUDIO" section and replaced the third serial port with audio. Big fail. It compiles and loads, but then the "composite USB device" does not start, there not only no audio, there are no serial ports. Without serial ports, I have to hit the button on the Teensy to upload new code to it. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to troubleshoot it. USB is pretty complicated...and no debugger. Can't even do debug printf's. One possibility would be to hook up a not-USB serial interface to a couple of teensy pins. Or do what I did once upon a time...find an unused I/O pin and have it emit morse code. The Teensy is limited to 8 USB "Endpoints". That limits the number of USB devices you can have active. Two serial ports plus audio maxes it out. Which is too bad. There's also a simulated disk drive, which could come in handy. Any USB experts out there? - Jerry, KF6VB
|
|
T41 Spreading the word
2
Here is the attachment Jack, I recently introduced my cousin, NJ9S, to the T41 project. He's a member of the INDIANA CW SECTION NET and today I received the attached net's monthly bulletin. I thought you'd like it. 73 Rocco, WJ6U
|
Image Name
Sat 8:39am
Sat 8:39am