Category: Arduino

Homebrew QRP (CW or SSB)

russell Leave a comment

I’ve been getting frustrated trying to find complete/useful information on building a radio from scratch. All of the designs I find are really old and have parts that are hard to find now or are new and really complex. I realize that the transmission standards are higher now, but is there no middle ground? I’m looking for simple with modern and easy to find (read cheap) parts.

It would seem that QRP CW is my answer for now. I’ve found some homebrew QRP SSB, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Possibly the best resource I’ve found to this end is qrpme.com. They have lots of cool little QRP rigs and accessories to choose from ranging from about $30 up to about $50. I’m looking at the Lil’ Squall II that’s based on the infamous Pixie II, but with a crystal socket and changeable lowpass filter. It’s still fixed frequency, but you can easily change the crystal and filter and jump to other frequencies or even whole different bands. This kit is so simple and so well documented, that I’m going to attempt to build it from parts that I source myself whether from scavenging from other stuff, my local Hackerspace or ordering from EBay. I’m hoping to keep my cost well below the already inexpensive kit.

I’m also looking at the Rockmite II kits on the qrpme.com site. I will probably end up just ordering one of these kits when I can save up the $50 and justify spending it on a radio.

Another possible solution that recently caught my eye is the Arduino/AD9850 DDS combination that may allow one to build a VFO radio for less than $30. That sounds pretty cool. I’ll have to do some more research on this to see if it’s what I think it is. I’m not really sure what this would be capable of. If it would pick up and send CW, that would be cool enough for me. If it can also be used as part of AM, DSB, SSB or whatever, that would be rad.

Arduino CW Project: part 1

russell Leave a comment

Keyer Parts list:

  • Arduino Nano (or compatible)
  • Piezzo buzzer
  • 10K ohm trim potentiometer
  • 8x 100 ohm 1/4 watt resistors
  • 2-digit seven segment display (SSD)
  • 9 volt battery
  • 9 volt battery cap
  • 10x jumpers
  • 3.5mm audio jack
  • some extra solid wire for short connections

I was so excited when I got the Arduino Nano, I had the headers  soldered and on the breadboard for a CW keyer the same night I got it. I didn’t get the 2-digit seven segment display (SSD) installed until a couple days later. Now I’ve got that wired up and working as it should and with a more logical wiring layout than I did when I got it working before. This will be significant later.

I started with the tutorial and code for seven segment displays I found over at Tinker Hobby. With a little work and some judicious note taking, I was able to map my common anode SSD and get the counter program working right. From there, I needed to figure out how to output my WPM (Words Per Minute) to the SSD. You can easily use Serial.println() to output WPM to the debug window in the Arduino IDE, but that’s not very portable. To get your words per minute, you’ll need a little math (but not much really). You already have the millisecond length of the tone from the sketch. Just divide 1200 by the milliseconds and you’ve got your approximate workds per minute. A little tip here (and you’ll see this in the sketch) is to divide down the milliseconds so that the potentiometer adjustment isn’t so sensitive.

Okay. So now you have your WPM. How do we get it to the SSD? It’s not as hard as you’d think. We start by breaking up the digits of your WPM. We have to do this because the SSD doesn’t actually display both digits simultaneously. What’s really happening is that one digit gets displayed, then the other, really fast. So that’s what we’ll do. To separate the digits, we’ll use the modulo operator that performs a simple division and returns the remainder. You can see how this is done in the sketch. You may have to experiment a little to get how the pins are laid out on your SSD. The segments are always the same. You can change the mapping in the definitions section of the sketch.

Now you just follow the schematic, write the sketch to the Arduino and you should have a working, adjustable keyer with side tone and a handy readout.

Nano with everything wired up for testing.

Nano with everything wired up for testing.

You can see the Arduino Nano at the bottom with the power LED lit up. I’m running the project off of a 9v battery on the VIN (Voltage IN) and ground. The wiring on the right side of the board — the analog pins — is for the keyer. A0 is set as input from from the 10k ohm trim pot, A1 is output to the piezo speaker for sidetone, and A2 and A3 are the dit and dah for the Hackey. The SSD is hooked up the the digital pins.