ubitx V5 now in production february 7, 2019 by dan kb6nu

Dave, N8SBE, forwarded this message to our club’s mailing list….Dan

——– Original Message ——–Subject: [BITX20] ubitx v5 is in productionFrom: “Ashhar Farhan” <farhanbox@gmail.com>Date: Wed, February 06, 2019 1:33 amTo: bitx20@groups.io

We have pushed the ubitx v5 into production. The intial 100 boards are here. I will update the website soon too. See the scans on https://groups.io/g/BITX20/album?id=84174.

I have uploaded the new Arduino firmware and the schematic on https://github.com/afarhan/ubitx_v5/. The new firmware breaks backward compatibility with the previous firmware as the Intermediate Frequency is now 11.059 MHz and the relay switching is different.  Probably, is it is possible to patch the new code to switch between the two LPF relay switching schemes as well as the IF with some #define statements.

The new ‘features’ are :

• LM386 is back. All hail the cross-over distortion sickness!
• The IF is now 11.059 MHz, these crystals are easily available, with 68 pf, they give a pretty good 2.7 KHz band pass. As their frequency is away from any spur of 16 MHz and 25 MHz (the two crystal oscillators on the Raduino) hence, no spurs!
• The relay switching scheme is different. The 30 MHz LPF is now always on, the individual LPFs for lower bands are switched in or bypassed (by default). It is easily understood in the circuit diagram.
• The CW wave-shaper uses 1 uf capacitor in place of 0.1u, this reduces the key-clicks.

73, f.

Dave comments:

Fellow ARROW heads,

The uBitx V5 is now in production.  In particular, click on the BITX20/album link  to see the spectrum analyzer plots of the transmitter output.  The green horizontal line is the FCC limit, and as you can see, all spurious and harmonic output is now well below the FCC limits.  In other words, the V5 looks to be cleaned up vs. the V4 boards.

If you’ve already built a V4 into an enclosure, it should be a simple swap-out to change from a V4 to a V5 board.

I’ll put in my order for a V5 board right after I send this email.  As of a couple of days or so ago, all new orders are being filled with V5 boards.  The going price for single boards is $129.  Still a good deal for a 10W SSB/CW 80-10m transceiver.

Or you could wait for QRPlabs QSX transceiver, which is hopefully due out by about Hamvention.  Likely Hans will be selling those kits at the Four Days in May starting on Thursday of Hamvention week, and if he has any left over, at the Hamvention starting on Friday.  If QSX’s show up at FDIM/Hamvention, they will be a very hot commodity, so don’t miss out.  The tentative price will be $150, including the case.

73.

— Dave, N8SBE