{"id":112,"date":"2008-05-30T13:13:06","date_gmt":"2008-05-30T07:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/?p=112"},"modified":"2008-05-30T13:35:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-30T08:05:00","slug":"building-bitx-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/?p=112","title":{"rendered":"Building Bitx part-1"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wlWriterSmartContent\" id=\"scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:2cd8f5ee-acb6-4b0d-b752-2da8764f3de1\" style=\"padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px\">Technorati Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/bitx40%20trifilar%20transformer%20winding\" rel=\"tag\">bitx40 trifilar transformer winding<\/a><\/div>\n<p>&#160;&#160; Bitx 20 is a cute QRP transceiver for 20m. The original Bitx 20 was developed by Indian engineer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.phonestack.com\/farhan\/bitx.html\" target=\"_blank\">Ashar Frahan<\/a>. The details of the circuit and other details&#160; are available at his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.phonestack.com\/farhan\/bitx.html\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a>. There is an active <a href=\"http:\/\/groups.yahoo.com\/group\/BITX20\/\" target=\"_blank\">yahoo group<\/a> for bitx builders and&#160; there are several mods and add-ons&#160; developed by bitx enthusiast all over the world.<\/p>\n<p>&#160; I am already having a Bitx20 and I have made contacts&#160; with several European and Russian&#160; amateurs on 20m.&#160; I have been&#160; thinking about&#160; building a&#160; modified version&#160; of&#160; bitx for 40m&#160; for quite some time now.&#160; Now that I am on vacation, I have started working on this project last night.&#160;&#160; I am following the version 3&#160; layout as&#160; prepared by VU2WJM OM Rahul for this.&#160;&#160; The diagram is <a href=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitxv3diagram.gif\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I will describe my progress&#160; along as i build here.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;&#160; For converting the Bitx 20 to 40m two modifications are to be done. The band pass filter must be redesigned for 40m and the VFO must oscillate around 17MHz.&#160; I am planning to get the transceiver working for 20m and then replace the VFO and band pass filter.<\/p>\n<p>I am following ugly construction method for this project.&#160; In ugly construction a plain copper clad sheet is used as a ground plane. All components having connection to ground are soldered on to the copper clad sheet. All other connection are between component leads and not supported on the board. <\/p>\n<p>The&#160; following&#160; photographs show my&#160; progress so far <\/p>\n<p>&#160; <a href=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-microphone-amplifier.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"184\" alt=\"Bitx_microphone_amplifier\" src=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-microphone-amplifier-thumb.jpg\" width=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>&#160; The&#160; microphone amplifier. <\/p>\n<p>This stage was&#160; built first and tested&#160; by injecting a 50mv 1Khz signal from a signal generator. The stage was giving a gain of nearly 10.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-beat-frequency-oscillator.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"184\" alt=\"bitx_Beat_frequency_oscillator\" src=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-beat-frequency-oscillator-thumb.jpg\" width=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Bitx beat frequency oscillator<\/p>\n<p>I built the above stage next&#160; and&#160; powered up. The waveform was observed on a CRO and frequency measured with a frequency counter. I was able to vary the oscillator frequency about 20khz by turning the trimmer. <\/p>\n<p>The next step was to wind the trifilar transformer for the mixer.&#160; The details are shown below. <\/p>\n<p>&#160;&#160; <\/p>\n<p>&#160;<a href=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-trifilar-transformer-winding-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"184\" alt=\"bitx_trifilar_transformer_winding_1\" src=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-trifilar-transformer-winding-1-thumb.jpg\" width=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Take approximately 105cm of 29 SWG enameled copper wire. Fold them into three as shown above.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-trifilar-transformer-winding-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"184\" alt=\"bitx_trifilar_transformer_winding_2\" src=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-trifilar-transformer-winding-2-thumb.jpg\" width=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Twist&#160; the wires together. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-trifilar-transformer.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"184\" alt=\"bitx_trifilar_transformer\" src=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-trifilar-transformer-thumb.jpg\" width=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Wind 13 turns into a toroid. You can use a TV balun . In that case choose&#160; smaller wire&#160; diameter( something like 32SWG).&#160; Cut the ends of the&#160; wires and isolate the three windings. Identify the ends of the windings with a multimeter and mark the windings with marker pen. (You need at least 2 colors). Now the transformer can be installed. Be careful about the polarity of the windings.<\/p>\n<p>&#160; <a href=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-mixer-installed.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px\" height=\"184\" alt=\"Bitx_mixer_installed\" src=\"http:\/\/brainstorms.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bitx-mixer-installed-thumb.jpg\" width=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>The bitx mixer installed on the board.<\/p>\n<p>&#160; I will describe further progress later<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Technorati Tags: bitx40 trifilar transformer winding &#160;&#160; Bitx 20 is a cute QRP transceiver for 20m. The original Bitx 20 was developed by Indian engineer Ashar Frahan. The details of the circuit and other details&#160; are available at his website. There is an active yahoo group for bitx builders and&#160; there are several mods and&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/?p=112\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Building Bitx part-1<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ham-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstorms.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}