The parts for the PA3CNO frequency display and huff & puff arrived on Tuesday and I spent a couple of nights assembling the circuit board. I found the parts list I was working from didn’t include the 7805 regulator so I had a quick trip to Jaycar to get a couple.
I assembled the board and powered it up without the BITX20 connected.
At first I just got the top line full of rectangles and nothing on the bottom line.
I checked the board over a couple of times and found one stray piece of solder. Once remove it started to look much better.
I connected my DDS generator to the VFO input of the counter and the display worked 100%.
I haven’t checked the huff & puff function yet or the signal meter function but it is looking good so far.
I must say I was very surprised, and pleased, to see VK3ZPF come up on the start up screen. I was expecting PI4RAZ instead. I am using an LCD with a blue backlight and it looks fantastic.
After testing with my DDS generator I connected the readout to my BITX20 and saw that the display worked very well and was showing the operating frequency with no problems. The signal meter stays at S9 +60dB because I have nothing connected to that part of the circuit.
Now I need to work on getting the VFO control from the huff & puff circuit integrated into my BITX20 Version 3. The documentation for the display shows the connection to the Hendricks BITX20A and the VFO in my Version 3 is slightly different.
I’m sure I will work it out but it can wait a day or two.
73