DX-FT8 TABLET TRANSCEIVER

PORTABLE FT8 ANYONE?

While browsing AE5X's excellent blog, I saw a post about a forthcoming product which is due to be made available some time in early 2025.

It's a portable QRPp 5-Band FT8 Transceiver Tablet with a touch-screen. It covers the 10, 12, 15, 17 & 20M bands and puts out less than 1W with a 5V power supply (perfect for using with a small USB Power Bank). It's going to be less than 7"x4" in size which pretty much makes it a pocket-radio! I just love this ultra low-power stuff - it's what keeps me interested in the hobby.

Following further enquiries, I immediately placed a pre-order for one from K5BCQ and it will hopefully be shipped out in February. These kits cost around $40, so no big investment required.

In the meantime, I have also ordered (and received) another item which you have to obtain separate to the kit - the STM32 Development Board from Digikey.

 

I'm very much looking forward to building this kit and will review the completed product in due course. You can find out more about this project by visiting THIS WEBSITE.

I’ve created a FACEBOOK GROUP for anyone who wants to share info/tips/help on that platform. I’d be delighted to see you join, if it’s of interest to you 👍

 

UPDATE JUNE 2025

Due to many other commitments (and changes in my life), I've only just been able to dig out the kit and put it together.

It went together pretty quickly and easily - the instructions on the GitHub Page were clear enough to me, but I have seen people posting instructional videos who have got it wrong(!) so beware.

Your first job is to unpack all the components and lay them out to check that nothing's missing. In the 5-BAND kit, there's only an SMA antenna socket, two switches, a DC Jack and a 3-pin Male/Female connector.

You also get a DC lead, some inline-pin connectors and the nylon screws, nuts and posts. Please note that the photo above shows the screen board which you buy separately from Digikey/Mouser, etc.

Make sure when you're soldering the inline-pin connectors that you locate them on the right side of the PCB!! I've seen videos where people have soldered them on the component side of the board - which is wrong - read the manual and only solder a couple of pins before checking that everything's straight and flush...

Some have installed the CR2032 battery case the wrong way round - why, I've no idea! There's a clear diagram printed on the PCB to show which way it's fitted 😮

The trickiest part for many people is soldering the 3 wires to the audio socket (above) and to the 3-pin connector (below)...

With these 3 wires (not supplied) you just need to bear in mind that the the center-pin is GND and the other two are I-OUT and Q-OUT. It's not mission critical if you get the I and Q the wrong way around - it will result in no reception and can quickly be resolved by flipping the connector. It's basically swapping between LSB and USB.

When I'd finished putting the kit together, it was time to switch on by connecting a 12V supply to the DC connector. This will produce a screen like the one below. At this point you need to install the firmware as described in the instructions.

Once you have the firmware installed, you need to FORMAT a micro-sdcard (I used a 4Gb card) and create a StationData.txt file as per the guide.

When I inserted the sdcard and powered up the DX-FT8, it initially resulted in an error message - No Callsign, No Locator. This was because I had formatted the card using the 'QUICK FORMAT' option, so I reformatted with that option unticked.

With that issue sorted, the next switch-on revealed that there was no audio and no waterfall. 😭😭😭

I requested help on the IOGROUPS page and thankfully, someone called Ward Weaton came along to point out that his had also been deaf and it turned out to be one of the chips on the board that wasn't soldered properly! With that information, I reflowed the solder connections on all eight pins and hey presto!😁

Once I was happy that the DX-FT8 was fully operational, I installed the top and bottom covers and left the radio running for a while to see what happened. I had no choice but to use a very compromised vertical antenna, but nevertheless (and despite shocking band conditions), the radio (in beacon mode) attracted confirmed contacts from as far as Belarus.

Checking in on PSKreporter, I could see that the tiny output of the DX-FT8 was being detected as far as 5,436km away!😲 Excellent!!

When the band conditions get better 😒 I'm very much looking forward to taking this to the top of a hill with me and seeing how much DX I can log with such little power. Love this QRP stuff 💖

By the way, there's a 7-BAND version available now.

73, Tom, M7MCQ.