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Pocket FT8 for SOTA Interfaced with uSDX Transceiver

Equipment Radios & Power
#1

Greetings,

I have completed an FT8 Transceiver project which uses a uSDX Three Band Micro Transceiver.

I have placed the design files at this site.

https://groups.io/g/ucx/files/W5BAA_Pocket-FT8

Here is a link to a You Tube video that I prepared demonstrating my Pocket FT8 unit interfaced with a micro uSDX : Pocket FT8 Transceiver for SOTA - YouTube

The good news is that this project uses the Teensy 3.6 board which has built in ADC and DAC, so the parts count in minimal.

The bad news is that this project uses the Teensy 3.6 board which is out of stock with the original supplier PJRC.

I see that a Ali Express site in the Netherlands is offering Teensy 3.6 boards.

I hope take my SOTA rig out to Colorado and the UK this summer to see how it works.

Regards,

Charley, W5BAA

9 Likes
#2

Thanks for the video of your great project, very interesting.
I hope you get to try some SOTA with it.
Regards
Ian vk5cz …

2 Likes
#3

Thanks for sharing this. This really inspiring stuff - a step away from the norm of taking a PC/laptop and using wsjtx. A true homebrew effort. Your user interface looks great. Presumably the audio input/output is standard audio and this would work with an FT817 etc.?

There is now a fairly confusing amount of micro controller boards/families available for hobbyists. However, the Teensy seems have a lot going for it, good support and a good community. I used it earlier this year and was impressed.

Are you using ft8_lib to do the decoding?

73 Matthew M5EVT.

2 Likes
#4

That looks really good, much easier than carrying a tablet PC around.
If you get the chance can you do another video showing a successful QSO to show what the screen shows you? (does it highlight in red and does it autosequence etc.)

1 Like
#5

This is really interesting for me as I have been tinkering with a Pi 3B and 5 inch touch screen to try and get the package as small as possible. This looks to take it a little further and I have down loaded all the information and am looking at possibly building one but probably to work with a dedicated rock bound digital trx.
My pi vesion and digital trx work well as they are but power consumption of the pi and screen is quite high as I like to do multi day hiking trips and need power to run several evenings or morning sessions.

1 Like