uBiTX v6 Manual

For Reed N’s Arduino Nano Software, R1.5.1

About This Manual 2

About This Software 2

Front Panel Controls 3

3.5mm Jacks 3
Volume/Power 3
Tuning Knob 3
Touch Screen 4

Main Menu 4
Navigation 4
A&B 5
RIT 5
USB & LSB 5
CW 6
SPL 6
80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 10 6
★ (Star / Favorites) 7
⛭ (Gear / Settings) 7
⌨ (Numeric Pad) 7

Settings Menu 8
Calibrations 9
Local Oscillator 9
Beat Frequency Osc (BFO) 9
Touch Screen 9
CW Setup 10
Tone 10
Tx to Rx Delay 10
Keyer Type 10
Menu Audio 10
Play Speed 10
Reset All 10

Special Shortcuts 11
Calibration Shortcut 11
Menu Audio Shortcut 11
Appendix A: Menu Audio Encoding 11
Main Menu (Menu Audio) 11
★ (Star / Favorites) (Menu Audio) 12
⌨ (Numeric Pad) (Menu Audio) 13

Appendix B: Installation 13
Downloads and Installs 13
Callsign Setup 14
Programming Configuration and Upload 16

About This Manual

The uBiTX v6 comes with an Arduino Nano that is pre-programmed with Ashhar Farhan’s stock
v6.1 software. While there is (intentionally!) overlap between these instructions and the stock
software usage, this manual is specifically for radios that have been reprogrammed with “Reed
N’s” software, which can be found at https://github.com/reedbn/ubitxv6, and may not be a
suitable guide for using the stock software.

This manual does NOT cover every aspect of the uBiTX v6, and assumes you have at least a
cursory understanding of the radio. For more information on the hardware and theory of
operation, see the manufacturer’s website and the groups.io forum.

About This Software

Reed N’s uBiTX v6 Nano software is designed to be a direct upgrade from the stock software,
without any hardware modifications or recalibrations required. It is also designed to maintain a
similar feel and UI design to the stock software, to make upgrading as painless as possible.

This software has not been tested with any versions of the uBiTX other than v6, so it is not
recommended for those unless you know what you are doing, and adjust the source code
according to your build’s hardware setup.

While Reed occasionally may choose to provide support for this software, he makes no
guarantees of such support, the quality of the software, or the accuracy of this manual.
Front Panel Controls

If you’re not already familiar with the radio, on the front panel there are two knobs, three 3.5mm
jacks, and a touch screen.

3.5mm Jacks
The 3.5mm jacks are for, in order left to right:
● Microphone/PTT
● Headphones
● CW Key
The electrical details of these jacks can be found at the bottom of the uBiTX v6 radio schematic,
which can be downloaded from https://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/ubitx-v6/

Volume/Power
The leftmost knob turns the radio off in the counter-clockwise-most position, and controls audio
output volume otherwise.

Tuning Knob
The large knob on the right turns continuously, and additionally has a button function when
pressed towards the body of the radio. Turning the knob usually selects menu items, or tunes
the radio frequency. Pressing the button usually confirms selections. Turning the tuning knob
quickly will cause the selection or frequency to change more quickly for a given amount of
rotation than turning the tuning knob slowly. This enables very rapid tuning across the bands,
but does mean that you must intentionally turn the knob slowly in order to get precise selections.
Touch Screen
The touch screen displays the current radio status, and allows you to rapidly select most
functions with your finger, or a stylus.

Main Menu
When you first turn on your radio, you should see a screen like this:

Navigation
Each rectangular outline represents a button. Orange-background buttons are “active”, while
black-background buttons are not. You can select these buttons in two different ways. The first
and most common way is to simply touch the button with a finger or stylus. The second method
is to use the tuner knob.

While on this screen, by default, the tuner knob will tune the active VFO up (clockwise) or down
(counter-clockwise). To enter button selection mode, briefly push the tuner knob in. The thin
outline around the “A” button should change from dark grey to white, as shown below:

Rotating the tuner knob will move this white outline, with clockwise advancing right then down,
and counter-clockwise advancing left then up. Pressing the tuner knob briefly again will select
and activate the outlined button.
A&B
The “A” and “B” buttons represent the two VFO memories. The text following the letter is the
carrier frequency, in Hz. This is true both when in side band mode, where the actual carrier is
suppressed, as well as in CW mode, in which case the carrier is the only signal transmitted. In
the example image above, VFO A is active and tuned to 7.030300 MHz, while VFO B is inactive
and tuned to 28.456800 MHz. Pressing the “A” or “B” button will activate that VFO, and save
both VFO settings to persistent memory, so that if you turn your radio off and back on again, it
will come up just where you left off.

RIT
RIT stands for “Receive Incremental Tuning”. When you press the RIT button, it will lock the
active VFO as the transmit frequency, which will be shown below the VFO. Tuning while RIT is
active will change the receive frequency, but NOT the transmit frequency. Pressing RIT again
will restore the VFO to the locked transmit frequency.

USB & LSB

USB and LSB stand for “Upper/Lower Side Band”. Pressing either will select the side band the
radio is receiving. Additionally, when either LSB or USB is pressed, both VFO settings will be
saved to persistent memory, so if you turn your radio off and back on again, you’ll be right
where you left off.

CW
CW switches the radio from operating in the normal voice/data sideband mode into a Morse
Code ready Continuous Wave mode. When CW mode is active, the PTT button becomes a DIT
input, and the key input jack is enabled. The radio also automatically tunes away from the
displayed frequency during receive so that your preferred audio tone is exactly where you will
be transmitting. Don’t worry, though - when you transmit, you will be transmitting your carrier on
the frequency shown.
SPL
SPL is a contraction for “split”. In this mode, you’ll see that the active VFO will change to “R”,
and the inactive VFO will change to “T”. Your radio will now receive on the “R” frequency, and
transmit on the “T” frequency.

To change the transmit frequency, select the transmit VFO (it will change to “R”), adjust the
frequency and side band mode as desired, then select the receive VFO. Each VFO retains its
own sideband mode, so you can listen on LSB and transmit on USB if you want.

80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 10

The numbered buttons are shortcuts to jump to the USA’s band allocations for the
corresponding wavelength in meters. For instance, the 80 button jumps to the 80m band. While
you are tuned within the band, the button will be displayed as active, with an orange
background. If you tune outside of the band, it will become inactive with a black background.

If you are tuned outside of these bands, then pressing a band button will jump you to the middle
of the band you selected. However, if you are within a band, then selecting a different band will
jump you to the same relative location in the new band. For instance, if you are tuned to 7.030
MHz in the 40m band, and you then press 10, you will jump to 28.170 MHz, since 170kHz up
from the 10m band start at 28 MHz is the same fractional distance as 30kHz up from 7 MHz is
of the total 40m band.

If your band switches the frequency from below 10 MHz to above 10 MHz, then the side band
mode will be automatically changed to match the standard of USB above 10 MHz and LSB
below 10 MHz.

Finally, similar to the VFO and side band buttons, pressing a band button will store both VFO
settings to persistent memory, so if you turn your radio off and back on again, you’ll be right
back where you left off.
★ (Star / Favorites)
The ★ / star / favorites button opens up the favorites menu. Four frequencies are listed on the
right. You can recall these frequencies by briefly pressing the desired one, or save the active
VFO to one of these slots by pressing and holding the desired slot to program. Pressing “Can”
will exit the menu without making any changes.

⛭ (Gear / Settings)
Pressing the ⛭ / gear / settings button opens up the settings menu. The settings menu is
covered in detail in the Settings Menu section.

⌨ (Numeric Pad)
The ⌨ / numeric pad button opens up a screen where you can directly enter your desired frequency. To
enter a new frequency, press the numbers from most to least significant, then press “OK” to confirm. If
you make a mistake, you can press the “<-” button to remove the last digit that was entered, or press
“Can” to cancel and return to the main menu without making any changes. In the example below, the
following buttons were pressed: 1, 4, 0, 7, 4, 0, 0, 0. Note that the three bottom 0’s are required, as the
value entered is in Hz.
Settings Menu
To enter the settings menu, press the ⛭ button on the main menu. Unlike the main menu, the
settings menu does NOT support touch inputs. You must use the tuning knob to select and set,
and press the tuning knob in to confirm.

Each setting screen will show a brief description of the setting, the current value in dark blue on
a black background, and the new value in white on a blue background.

Calibrations
The calibrations submenu contains all of the calibrations for the radio. The location the
calibrations are stored are the same as the locations that the stock v6.1 software stores them,
so you should not have to recalibrate your radio when switching between this software and the
stock v6.1 software.

WARNING: calibrations are not the easiest thing to get right, so if your radio is already
calibrated, adjusting the calibrations further is not recommended. If you wish to proceed, see
Ashhar’s video demonstrating the calibration process first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=t6LGXhS4_O8 .
Local Oscillator
The Local Oscillator setting is the calibration that determines whether your radio displays the
same frequency that it tunes. The value of this calibration adjusts the chip generating all three of
the clock signals used in the IF pipeline so that it will output exactly the right frequencies.

Beat Frequency Osc (BFO)

The BFO determines which sideband is passed and which is rejected. Whereas the Local
Oscillator calibration has a single correct value, you may want to adjust the BFO to get a
different balance of rejection versus tinny-sound.

Touch Screen
Selecting this calibration will enable you to calibrate the touch screen. This setting is different
than any other setting page, since the touch screen input is needed to perform the actual
calibration. Unlike the other settings pages, pressing the tuner knob button will CANCEL rather
than confirm the setting. To complete the calibration successfully, you will need to precisely
touch a cross in each corner, as they appear, one by one. For example, the first step (as shown
below) is to touch the center of the cross in the upper left corner of the screen.

CW Setup
CW Setup includes various settings related to Morse Code.

Tone
The Tone setting determines what frequency a properly tuned CW signal will sound like. Your
radio will play the tone while this setting is active so that you can know exactly what you’re
listening for.

Tx to Rx Delay
This delay setting determines how long the radio will stay in transmit mode after the last key
input is released. A longer delay will wear less on your radio’s relay, since it will not switch
between TX and RX as often. A shorter delay allows for faster break-ins.
Keyer Type
The software has a built-in keyer, and this setting lets you choose how it should behave. “Hand
Key” is a straight-key mode, and will send the carrier as long as the DIT or PTT inputs are held.
Iambic A and Iambic B are paddle modes as normally defined.

Menu Audio
Turning on Menu Audio causes the radio to play back Morse Code to indicate which button or
menu selections are highlighted. For some selections, after the Morse Code, there’s an
additional tone that’s higher or lower than the CW playback tone to indicate if a feature is on or
active (higher) or off or inactive (lower).

When using the tuning knob, if tune too high or low, a beep lower than your CW playback tone
indicates you’ve gone out of band. If you tune back into band, you will hear a beep higher than
your CW playback tone.

This is especially useful for the visually impared, who may not be able to easily see the
information on the screen. Also see Menu Audio Shortcut and Appendix A: Menu Audio
Encoding.

Play Speed
Adjusts the duration and spacing of dits and dahs. This setting affects both the keyer and the
menu audio.

Reset All
WARNING: This setting does exactly what it says! It resets ALL calibrations and settings. Your
radio’s local oscillator calibration, BFO calibration, touch input calibration, VFO, and favorites
settings will ALL be wiped. Unless you have very special circumstances, you probably do NOT
want to use this!

Special Shortcuts
There are two non-standard inputs built into the radio for special purposes.

Calibration Shortcut
This shortcut takes you through all three calibration steps back-to-back, and is used for initial
setup of new radios.
To activate the shortcut:
1. Turn OFF your radio
2. Press and hold the tuning knob button in
3. While continuing to hold the tuning knob button in, turn ON your radio
4. Release the tuning knob, then follow the calibration steps
Menu Audio Shortcut
This shortcut lets you enable or disable the menu audio setting without having to navigate into
the settings menu. The reason for having a special shortcut for this setting is so that a visually
impared user who may need the menu audio setting to be on to operate the radio at all can turn
on the menu audio without needing to navigate menus and settings blindly.
To activate the shortcut:
1. Turn on your radio
2. Press and hold the tuning knob button in for 3-4 seconds
3. Release the tuning knob when you hear the radio play either
a. <CT> if menu audio is turned on
b. <SK> if menu audio is turned off

CAT Control (PC Serial)

In order to make the operation of the radio easier when using PC software, the serial port on the
Arduino Nano is set up to emulate the Yaesu FT-817ND’s CAT Control, as documented in it’s
respective Operating Manual. This uBiTX software runs the serial port at 38400 baud, 1 stop bit.
Some screenshots of confirmed working settings for popular programs are included for
reference. Note that the port assigned by your computer may be different than the “COM7”
shown in these screenshots.
WSJT-X
fldigi

Appendix A: Menu Audio Encoding

These tables list buttons and their corresponding menu audio playback characters. The settings
menu plays back the text strings for the settings as full words, so no decoding table is provided
for it.

Main Menu (Menu Audio)

Button Character

VFO A A, followed by the frequency

VFO B B, followed by the frequency

RIT R

USB U

LSB L

CW C

SPL S

80 8
40 4

30 3

20 2

17 7

15 5

10 1

★ (Star / Q
Favorites)

⛭ (Gear / M
Settings)

⌨ (Numeric F
Pad)

★ (Star / Favorites) (Menu Audio)

Button Character

0 0

1 1

2 2

3 3

⌨ (Numeric Pad) (Menu Audio)

Button Character

1 1

2 2

3 3

4 4

5 5
 6 6

7 7

8 8

9 9

0 0

OK K

<- B

Can C

Appendix B: Installation
If you haven’t already, you will need to reprogram your radio with this software. You will need:
● A computer that you have administrative privileges for
● A USB cable that can connect your computer with the uBiTX v6 (likely a USB-A to USB-
Mini type cable)
● An Internet connection to download the software

Downloads and Installs

The first thing to do is to download the Arduino IDE. The version of the IDE is important. The
software was developed on version 1.8.9 and version 1.8.13, so it is strongly recommended that
you use one of these two. The download location for the current Arduino IDE is
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software , but older versions can be found at
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/OldSoftwareReleases#previous if needed.

The Arduino Nanos that ship with the uBiTX require a driver for the USB to serial adapter chip
they have on them. If you haven’t worked with Arduinos before, there’s a good chance you don’t
have this driver yet, so you may need to install them, since you won’t be able to program your
uBiTX’s Arduino Nano without them. SparkFun’s website has instructions on how to do this:
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-ch340-drivers/all#drivers-if-you-need-them

Next, download the radio software. Navigate to https://github.com/reedbn/ubitxv6 . On the

webpage, there is a green button near the top on the right. Clicking on the button opens a drop
down menu. Under that menu, there is a “Download ZIP” option. Click that button to download
all of the source code.
Save the zip file to a location of your choosing.

Open the zip file, and extract it. You should end up with a folder called “ubitxv6-master” with
many files and folders inside of it. Rename this top folder from “ubitxv6-master” to “ubitxv6”. The
folder name must be “ubitxv6” due to the way the Arduino IDE works.

Callsign Setup
Open up the ubitxv6 folder, and double click the file “ubitxv6.ino” to open the project in the
Arduino IDE. You should be presented with a screen like this:

At the top of the screen, you can see that the project name is ubitxv6 and the Arduino IDE is
version 1.8.13. Above the source code, you can see a number of tabs. Clicking each tab will
show you the contents of that file’s source code. If you click on the small arrow pointing down on
the far right, it will open a menu listing all of the tabs. Click on “callsign.cpp” to open that file.
You should now see the contents of the callsign.cpp file. Replace the text inside the quotes with
your callsign.

Before:

After:
Click File>Save to save the file, or use the standard save shortcut Ctrl+S.

Programming Configuration and Upload

The last piece is configuring the Arduino IDE to program and Arduino Nano. Under the Tools
menu, configure:
● Board: “Arduino Nano”
● Processor: “ATmega328p (Old Bootloader)”
● Programmer: “AVRISP mkII”

Turn on your uBiTX, then connect the USB port between your computer and the radio. You
should get some indication from your operating system that a new USB device has been
detected.

In the IDE, you’ll also need to configure the Port to be the serial port your computer assigned to
the radio. Be aware that this assignment can change if you change which USB port you
connected the radio to. In this example, the radio was assigned COM7, so under the Tools
menu, the IDE is configured to use Port: “COM7”

Finally, we are ready to program! Near the top left corner, click on the arrow pointing right,
which is next to the check mark button, to compile and program your radio’s Arduino Nano.
At the bottom of the window, you should see the progress, and status text

When it finishes, you should see text saying “Thank you.”

You should see that your radio’s screen has refreshed, and now shows “R1.5.1” in the bottom
right corner. If so, you’ve successfully installed the software, and are now ready to go!