Sunday, September 23, 2012

BITX20 - 17. VFO first test....

Yesterday we had the "ROM" at "the lichtmis" Dutch amateurs will know what i am talking about, but as i have a lot of people and fellow ham's following me from abroad (which I'm really proud of, and thankful for) I'll explain what this is..... It's a small radio parts meeting. which has become a "must go to" for most hams in the Netherlands. Even though it's in the north part of the Netherlands, i always hear people from down south as well... This market is without a doubt one of the most fun markets to go to.

Well, anyway, i bought some parts which i still needed for the VFO. uhmm well, i only needed a 2k multiturn potentiometer (variable resistor)(blue thing in the picture)
This morning i started to hook up everything to see if it would work.... and it did....
For calibrating i need a 10k potmeter as we call it in the netherlands :) and i dont have any...
That's why you don't see a 14 MHz on the display yet. the vco is not hooked up yet
I'll be placing an order on eBay shortly after this post :)


Again i am getting a step closer to a working bitx, but there is still al bit to go... s-meter, agc...
But i think after the winter I'll be qrv on this set :)

UPDATE: potentiometers ordered :)

Saturday, September 15, 2012

BITX20 - 16. Building the external vfo part 2

Ok, finally i got most parts now.... thanks to ebay :) ... i ordered about 1200 capacitors, and the transistors i had a problem with getting where i live, the 2N2369.

A HAM friend of mine provided me with the 2 trim capacitors. which were the last parts needed to fill up the PCB.





Next problem will be the 2k multi turn potentimeter, but there is a HAM fair next weekend again :)
And if i have no luck , another one 2 weeks after that. So i guess this will be easy.

When this is working, I'll start to put the bitx20 together , cause the last part is the PA part, which seems not that time intensive. so maybe this year it will be done. (Remember i never was in a hurry to build this :) )