Learn about the Raduino board in BITX

 Raduino circuit board supplied with µBITX has an arduino soldered to the Raduino board, control lines for the display unit, Si5251a PLL clock generator chip, 5V regulator and a 16 pin connector to the µBITX main board. Arduino is the microcontroller which runs the BITX software defined radio. Connections are there to front and/or rear panel components like key jack, power supply connector and rotary encoder. Rotary encoder is an electromechanical device that converts the angular position or motion of a shaft to analog or digital output signals. Typical use of a rotary encoder is as the tuning control. Arduino nano can be programmed by connecting a USB cable from the computer to the USB mini-B port on the arduino nano. Firmware for the Raduino/Arduino control is available from the github page of VU2ESE. Other versions of firmware by different authors are also available online.

If the Raduino is damaged by any reason, there are options to replace either the individual components or use alternate boards for the same purpose. Some also upgrade with higher level devices for more features. Detailed instructions are available at ubitx.net webpage by ZL1AXG. Alternate options for Raduino discussed there include Raduino UMax by WA6ISP and RadI2Cino by W0EB/W2CTX/N5IB. Detailed instruction on how to get those options and nice pictures of the options are also available on the same page. As a disclaimer, I have not used any of these. Just providing the information for BITX users in this region whom I hear daily on the air on 40 m. Most of them use BITX along with a linear amplifier, often the one by VU2EVQ. I have been told by VU3CGZ that though VU2EVQ linear amplifier is out of production, PCBs are available on request. It is an amplifier optimised for BITX for 40m operations, as per VU3GEX. There is also a wonderful BITX community at https://groups.io/g/BITX20 with very active discussions on various options of µBITX, sBITX and the forthcoming zBITX, in which VU2ESE also participates. I do enjoy learning a lot about various aspects of BITX from the email group and discussions with BITX users on the air.

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