forty9er kit with dds vfo

In the March 2016 edition of QST, there was a project that added an arduino/ad9850 vfo to a cheap ebay forty9er kit.

In a happy accident, I had ordered one of these kits several weeks ago before I found out about this mod. The next day, after I found the project, my kit arrived. In a first for me, I also had everything I needed for the build on hand so I was able to get started right away. Most of the project info, including the schematics, code, and build manual, is located here. I put everything together on the bench to test it. I built it a bit fast and, as a result, the perf board layout is a bit messy, but it worked great.

I couldn’t find a suitable enclosure, so I asked my wife to keep an eye out for some sort of metal box. This is what I ended up with.

I wasn’t feeling the winter peanuts, so I painted the box. I just used some black spray paint and then clear coated it, but now I kinda wish I kept the peanuts.

It worked even better once I got it in the metal box. Here is a look at the final placement of everything.

I mounted the boards with standoffs and the screen is just held to the enclosure with some hot glue. I still need to beef up my morse code skills before I try any transmitting. I may try to build in a keyer using one of the spare arduino pins, but for now, it works great as a receiver.