Rearange

I'm right handed so I rearanged the radio and interface boards around to make it more comfortable to play with.  Now I really need a knob 'cause spinning the encoder shaft is tedious...

No button debouncing was terrible so I whipped up a basic timer comparison test and now band selecting actually works.

Right above the Si5351 board from Adafruit are two potentiometers currently wired to the SSB6.1 labeled as WB/BW and WP/PW on the schematic.  I believe WB/BW is for the receiver band width control and adjusting it does seem to change the audio response.  I think the WP/PW pot controls the mic gain.  Above the two pots are three digital potentiometers I got from SparkFun I want to use instead of the analog pots.  I'd like to be able to use the remote UI to control the radio volume, rx band width, and mic gain and digital pots should do the trick.

SSB6.1 tranceiver with separate UI

I worked on getting a minimalist user interface working with the microView, a optical encoder, and a single button.  The button cycles through the 6 bands.  I did not add any debouncing code so each button press can result in one or several band changes; it makes selecting the band a bit challenging.  I'll work on integrating the SX1509 I/O expander during the next build.

The minimal user interface is on its own breadboard

The microView interacts with the Arduino pro mini via the TTL serial port.  The band button causes the uView to send commands to set the band and frequency while turning the encoder sends delta frequency commands.  On the display I show the band, the frequency the UI thinks is correct, and the frequency the DDS actually is generating.  So far the 2 controllers seem to keep in sync but I did incorporate a syncing mechanism to make sure they are.

SSB6.1 RTX with band switching

I made some progress with the SSB6.1 radio.  I wound and added the two 40 meter coils and two of the plastic connectors.  I decided it would be easier to use Female-Male jumpers instead of continuing to tack-solder Male-Male jumpers to the PCB.  It turns out that my tack-soldering was a bit more substantial than I had hoped -- one connection required a lot of solder wick to clean and I manged to lift the PCB foil.  Oops!  Well, stuff happens...  I wired up a small jumper on the bottom of the connector and I'll run it directly to the opto-isolator input pin...

I decided to split the radio control from the user interface.  The radio control will use an Arduino Pro Mini while the user interface can vary as desired.  The connection between the two will be via a TTL serial port possibly using RS-485.  This will allow me to have a sealed RF deck and have a remote user interface.

The SSB6.1 has 6 input pins used to select the band.  I wired up a 74hc295 (a 3 to 8 demultiplexor / decoder) to control the band selection.  This chip has 3 digital inputs (binary 0 to 7) and will assert 1 of 8 outputs.  In this application, this will allow only one band to be active at a time.  Fortunately I had a couple in my parts bin (any guesses as to how long?).  It's been sitting in the package for a while but it still works!

There are 4 other inputs to the SSB6.1.  Two are used to select the sideband and two are used to allow SSB or CW transmit keying.  One is labeled as 'CW' and the other is mysteriously labeled 'DT' (on the schematic, this is the DDSPTT input for SSB keying).  I am currently using a couple of digital output pins on the Arduino to select either upper or lower sideband. It's simple and I have a few pins on the Arduino.

On a whim, I threw some $$ at a kickstarter campaign for a fun speech chip that I may use to provide voice feedback.   There is even a version of the chip with words centered around communications (like phonetics).  It should be interesting to play with.

From top left clockwise:  the voice chip, the Arduino Pro Mini with the 74hc295 below it, the SSB6.1, the Si5351 DDS, and finally my trusty old Radio Shack digital logic probe.

With the band and mode selection and a serial connection to the PC in place, I can set the frequency, the band filter, and the mode via keyboard commands.  And, 40 meters sounds great!  :-)