| K5FFO |
Rating:     |
2020-09-18 | |
| v6 is great, as long as you have experience. |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
As another review stated, if you are looking for a top of the line, do it all rig, look elsewhere. This radio will get you on the air, and it is inexpensive. It is a $200 radio, and not a Yaesu 818, or whatever.
That being said, a little tweaking and modification to the programming will give you one heck of a CW rig. I work 80, 40, and 15 meters CW, and I love this rig. From time to time I have worked SSB on 10 meters with good results. I bought this for a field unit, and for that, it is excellent.
As long as you have some radio experience, and some programming skills, this rig is fun to use. If you have no real experience, forget it, as you won't be happy. Go buy a plug and play rig and be happy. |
|
| KT4WO |
Rating:     |
2020-06-04 | |
| Shocked! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Kit arrived in less than a week and I had it built(sitting at bar, while watching tv) in under 30min. Some of the reviews are what
has shocked me. Just what did some think they were getting
for ~$200 ??? a IC-7300 ???
But as all it takes to get a ham ticket these days are two
UPC's from CrackerJack boxes and ~$15. Guess that tells
all. This kit is about learning, mod'ing and hacking. It does
a GREAT job at that! Will be adding a simple AGC tomorrow and
then a SWR bridge later. DO NOT buy this rig if you think
it's a $1000.00+++ rig. |
|
| NZ2Z |
Rating:    |
2020-02-04 | |
| UBITX v6 It works but ... |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
This is my 4th uBitX. Having met Farhan at FDIM he explained that his radios are really for hackers. You know. The ham that buys a radio. Doesn’t read the manual (there is none) and opens it up to tinker with it. It is surely worth the cost and incorporates some of the hacks that have been published, especially the Nexion touch screen (he includes a stylus for the ham handed).
I have two criticisms. The first, which may be my individual issue, is the hash on receive. There is a filter, fairly easy to build, that can be added to resolve this. My only other criticism is in CW. There is a one second delay when sending the first dit or dah. The delay goes away if you maintain the rhythm of your WPM. If you lose your rhythm the first character delay comes back. I have read a fix for this as well, uploading an updated Arduino firmware.
So out of the box, you get a $200 radio. You are expected you use your skills to upgrade it. What other CW SSB 6-80 meter radio is out there? |
|
| W9DJ |
Rating:    |
2020-02-03 | |
| Interesting and Enjoyable Project |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have v 5 (I think-it was a gift). No touchscreen, but it shows 5.1 firmware on the display. First, this is not exactly a "kit," but more like a bag of parts with no instructions. The main board comes pre assembled, but there are various things to add if you want a working radio. Mine has the case, so there is some soldering, grinding off of paint to get grounds, and screwing involved. "Instructions" are on various web sites, but I could not always find what I needed to know, so there was some aspect of solving a puzzle to building the radio and some trial and error. A few parts (on/off switch; fuse; and shaft encoder) were defective and I had to replace them. I am marking it down one star for the lack of guidance and support, but offset somewhat by the price and the fact this is a hacker radio, not a consumer item.
So how does it work? Not badly, actually. I'll take one more star off for the fact that's it not a high end radio, taking it down to 3, but I am having a ball using it. It has some significant drawbacks: no AGC is the biggest one. I have to ride the volume/gain control constantly. The internal speaker is awful and is not loud enough, so I just plugged in an amplified external unit and that sounds fine. Selectivity and sensitivity are great at this price point. Tuning steps are coarse, though I understand you can remedy this by hacking the firmware. I have been receiving great tx audio reports with the supplied el cheapo electret mic cartridge, though I think carrier suppression is not first class. It's not a perfect cw radio, as it's not QSK, but it's useable. It puts out about 5 watts on CW and 10 p.e.p. on ssb. I haven't been able to get the split feature to operate correctly yet (probably I just have to figure it out). Calibration was a bit of mystery, and I should have left well enough alone. I think I have it OK now, but I have not quite figured out what it is doing with CW offset.
The nice thing about a project like this is that while you can use it, there is always something else that needs doing if you want to play.
The radio does not have an amp keying circuit, so I remedied that with two diodes and a relay (about $1.50 in parts). It drives a pair of 3CX800's to 700 watts on 80 and 40, 500 watts on 20, and 300 watts on 17. Have not tried other bands yet. This is all assuming my power meter (Autek) is semi-accurate.
I am extremely pleased with this radio. Considering the price and the fact that it is hacker transceiver (reminds me of early Linux days) maybe it deserves 5 stars, but I don't want to mislead anyone.
I haven't built a full radio in quite a few years, and I had a great time and got to practice my cussing vocabulary. It's a true basic ham experience. Not home brew, but very rewarding. It's a million times better than my first rig in 1961 -S38 and DX-35, though the DX-35 had more power. With the amp on the uBITX I have had many enjoyable rag chews and people always enjoy talking about it. As a couple of guys said, "I'm really glad you broke in so we can talk about something besides the weather." |
|
| WB3V |
Rating:     |
2020-02-03 | |
| Good value for the price, and fun to build |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Received the very well packed box with the Ubitx V6 the other day. Some things are not mentioned in the on-line assembly instructions that may be helpful:
1. remove the jam nuts from the front panel controls before inserting the board into the case.
2. Save the shortest flat head screws to attach the display to the case.
After assembly, hold the tune knob in while turning on the radio. This will take you to the setup mode (I did not see that described in the instructions). First use the on-screen instructions to align the display. Next zero beat WWV (don't worry about the numbers displayed, just zero beat the signal). Next adjust the BFO to 11055.0 and that should do it. It works for me.
If you enter setup again, you will have to go through the whole process once again. |
|
| KQ4KK |
Rating:     |
2019-12-27 | |
| VERSION 6, PLUG AND PLAY |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have owned kits from version 3 thru 5. Much improvement over each version. The last, version 5.1 does everything it should for a QRP radio.
I just plugged version 6 together. NO soldering. Comes complete with case and a wired mic. A real radio erector set. Has a larger color, touch screen display.
However, the complete kit is now over $200 US when shipped from India. Not a cheap kit compared to other commercial $400-500 complete QRP/SDR transceivers with lots of controls. |
|
| KB2JHY |
Rating:  |
2019-10-06 | |
| lots of pain, for so little gain |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I thought I would try my hand at this reasonably priced kit which included a nice enclosure. After making all of the recommended fixes and modifications, it is still a mediocre transceiver.
I have invested a tremendous amount of time in this kit, had some successes, but in the end it is still not a radio that will be enjoyable to use. Power output is all over the place and not as advertised, and in cw mode, the lack of QSK due to relay T/R switching will not be a fun experience. If you have a lot of extra time on your hands, have the patience of JOB, MAYBE you should buy this transceiver.
|
|
| PA0RCL |
Rating:      |
2019-08-27 | |
| Great multiband QRP HF kit |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I got my third uBitX now, version 5, my earlier boards are both version 4. Version 4 had audio problems and these have been solved in the latest version by means of a good old LM386 audio IC. Moreover, the spurious radiation issue of the older versions seems to have been solved also, at least to a large extent.
In my review of August 2018 I gave version 4 a one, mainly because of the distorted audio. I am quite happy now with version 5, especially with KD8CEC's excellent firmware and the use of a 2.4 inch Nextion color touch screen.
Because of the improvements I do not hesitate to give version 5 a five.
----------------------
Earlier 1-star review posted by PA0RCL on 2018-08-11
The latest version of the kit (version 4) has a design problem, in my view. Audio is low and distorted. The manufacturer so far has not offered a fix to the problem. The culprit seems to be the audio amplifier.
How difficult can it be for a renowned designer of HF radio kits like HF signals to come up with an acceptable design for an audio amplifier?
The slogan for the uBitx is; "just waiting te be modified". I think it should read: "just waiting to be improved". Give it a go, folks at HF signals!
Because of he design problem the uBitx version 4 I can only give it 1 point out of 5: the kit is practically useless, I am sorry...... |
|
| N8YG |
Rating:      |
2019-06-26 | |
| Great little "kit" |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Very easy to get working.. Great little transceiver. I did have a bit of a hard time calibrating the frequency on the rig, until I realized that the calibration was putting out a 10 mHz signal that I could measure with my freq counter and tweak. Once I got beyond that.. I reflashed the firmware with CEC FW and now have ordered an AGC board.. and will probably get the nextion display. How much more fun can you get out of $139.00 DHL sipped? |
|
| W4BRX |
Rating:  |
2019-06-17 | |
| Not at all as advertised....Dud |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Recently, I purchased a V5 of this QRP rig. The Website says board ships factory aligned and ready to play. NOT! My board arrived with no parameters calibrated. After frustrating 4 hrs of trying to calibrate, I made fatal error of changing operating system to another software. This software is defective, not allowing access to calibration menu. The original V5.1 software is not available from vendor. My rig now totally unusable. Terrible buyers remorse here. |
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