I’m always late to the party, but
when I do arrive, I’m armed with
quite an arsenal of information thanks
to NV.
For example, I purchased a
PICkit3, but I haven’t used it yet. I
know I won't need that for the D-Stick but I may want to modify a PIC
soldered to a board some day. If it
wasn't for NV, I might have never
known about the D-Stick or the
Parallax FLiP.
I recently built the Numitron
Clock by Bill van Dijik from the
September 2016 issue. I also built the
ESP8266 Weather Clock by Craig
Lindley from the November 2016
issue. This was after I said I would
never do anything with a PIC or
Arduino.
I wound up customizing Craig's
code for fun, using the Arduino IDE
to make the changes. After a short
time, things got pretty easy.
I have been using Homeseer for
home automation. There is a
Homeseer plug-in that allows Arduino
integration. It's compatible with Uno,
Mega, and the like over USB or
Ethernet. It's also compatible with
NodeMCU over Wi-Fi. It easily
interfaces to common I2C displays.
Because of my work with Craig's
clock, I was able to get sensors,
loads, and displays easily interfaced
to my Homeseer system. I’m
comfortable customizing the sketch
and uploading with the IDE.
NV has quite a variety of
interesting and useful articles. I found
it interesting how many times I just
said, "That's nice" but then took up
the project a year later. I realized
then that I knew so much about it
only because I remember reading it
in NV.
For me, the real value of the
articles takes a little time to be fully
revealed and appreciated. Keep up
the good work!
Rick Swenton W1RHS
Wow, thanks for taking the time
to share your thoughts/history with
N&V. I hope you enjoy your
retirement.
Bryan Bergeron
BITX40 Mods
Excellent November 2017 issue!
I too am one of the unwashed
masses building a Bitx40.
There are a couple of "required"
hardware mods: one to add a cap to
the output LPF to make the
transmitter strictly legal in the US;
and one to add a pair of diodes to
protect the receiver front end from a
strong nearby transmitter.
There are many more
enhancement mods out there;
groups.io/g/bitx20/topics is a good
resource.
Allard PE1NWL is the go-to guy
for Bitx40 software updates. As of
this writing, he has released v1.26.
Updates include USB, LSB, CW, RIT,
and Dual VFOs.
Some of these updates require
additional hardware mods. Most only
require the addition of a function
pushbutton. The v1.xx series remains
backward-compatible with the vanilla
Bitx40 as shipped by Hfsigs.
Mike WA6ISP has an upgraded
Raduino. The RaduinoX provides
headers for the Arduino Nano, a
better mounting for the 5V regulator
(fixes a hot regulator issue), and a
connector for a rotary encoder et. al.
James Lynes KE4MIQ
Appreciate the feedback!
Bryan Bergeron
January 2018 65
READER FEEDBACK Continued from page 7