Broadcast - 21 September 2025
During the club’s recent special presentation night, Bill VK7MX, certainly held the floor with his newly acquired and very compact transceiver.
But let me set the scene first, back in 2016 Bill and Kevin VK7HKN gave a presentation on the new to market Bitx HF transceiver building block, a phenomenon which was sweeping the homebrew and QRP worlds. The name pronounced as “Bye-tex” and is derived from the bi-directional transmitter that was the heart of the original modules. That night Kevin demonstrated his new Bitx-40 HF transceiver with Bill demonstrating the slightly later version that sported an Arduino micro controller that provided better VCO control.
In 2023 Bill brought in his Version 1 and the recently released and just arrived at his house Version 2 in the sBitx series. The “s” denoting their first foray into the world of Software Defined Radio or SDR.
Now in 2025 Bill presented to us their next generation of SDR transceiver recently released, the zBitx.
The zBitx is an open-source, software-defined radio (SDR) transceiver.
Like the others it was developed by HF Signals, a company based in Illinois America that was founded by an amateur radio operator named Arshar Farhan VU2ESE.
Powered by the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W single board computer, running a Quad-Core 64-bit Arm Cortex A53 @ 1GHz.
Also incorporated is a Raspberry Pi Pico driving a 480×320 resistive touchscreen as well as taking care of the human interface side of things.
It covers HF amateur bands from 80 meters to 10 meters and outputs approximately 5 watts of power using two LiPo 18650 batteries or an external 6 to 9V DC power supply. Size 175 x 85 x 60 mm including its only human interface knob. It weighs in under 500 grams, this is considerably lighter than 2000 grams for the previous sBitx. The touchscreen allows easy band and mode selection, frequency tuning, AGC control, bandwidth adjustments (from 50 Hz for CW to 5000 Hz for AM/SSB), and other radio functions. The transceiver also supports external peripherals such as a microphone, earphones, keyboards, USB CAT control, and HDMI output for external display.
Part of the beauty of this unit is users can:
Operate FT8 without a computer,
Send CW from the touch screen keyboard or an external Morse key.
Decode CW on-board and display on its screen or even use your ear to decode, if you can.
The ability to log contacts easily using the internal app.
Firmware and software can be easily updated.
Even control the device remotely via Wi-Fi if desired.
The list goes on, if you can load software onto a raspberry Pi and configure it, theoretically it will run on the zBitx. This continues a long line of innovative radios from the Bitx Company, of which Bill appears to have collected many models over the years! Hi-Hi
This unit will have to be visited again, in depth, and while using the large club monitor to truly put it through its paces. Thanks for the appetiser Bill.
I mentioned Kevin VK7HKN earlier in this article and as it is now Sunday we can wish Kevin happy surprise 70th birthday for yesterday, with best wishes from not only NTARC members but the amateur fraternity in general. Well done Lyn VK7FROG for organising the occasion during such a hectic period.
Remember next Wednesday the 24th of September NTARC will be open for a special club room night. We will be hosting a gathering to watch the REAST presentation on “How to use the RSGB Electro Magnetic Radiation calculator”. Rather than sit at home watching, feel free to come along and watch it on a large
screen TV, in a distraction and stress free environment. Doors open at 7:00 pm for the 7:30 pm online presentation. See you Wednesday night.
Once again the last item of news but certainly not least is for Peter VK5KDO or our ex VK7KPC. Peter was lucky enough to reclaim his original call sign in South Australia that he operated under from a couple of decades previously before moving to Tasmania. It didn’t take him long before the club received a certificate for the members “Brag Folder” obtained using his new call sign. He participated in the Trans-Tasman contest, held in July. It is a short 6 hour evening contest and encourages Low Band activity between VK and ZL. Peter obtained a fifth place in the Single Operator QRP section, well done Peter.
As always pictures will be available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast. NTARC Blogs
UPCOMING EVENTS
On Air Test and Technical Net session - Every Wednesday, Test-Net and CW course on 3.580 MHz from 7 pm, then a Technical Net on 3.567 MHz from 7.30 pm till 8.30 pm. Your host for the evening is Nic VK7WW.
Special Club Room night session- This Wednesday the 24th. September, live stream of REAST presentation “How to use the RSGB calculator”. Doors open at 7:00 pm.
Club Room Technical night - The next session will be on Wednesday the 1st of October and will commence at the usual time of 6.30 pm at the Club Room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
Coffee Morning - Held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10 am to noon.
Finally – If you have any items of news please email them to the Secretary at the following address news@ntarc.net all items to be received no later than 5 pm on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
That’s all folks,
73, Stefan VK7ZSB.
