A radio without a knob is like a cart without a wheel. Our TV remotes might lack them, and the dial telephone is now a museum piece, but nothing can match the thrill of making things happen by turning a knob. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but tuning a radio without a knob isn’t very pleasant, and a mouse-scroll wheel is a poor substitute. So to provide that sexy knob feel we’ve come to expect, MDRF is develop-ing a USB knob device that emulates the scroll wheel on a computer mouse.
All the software packages such as Quisk, SDR++, and others, respond to the scroll wheel by tuning the rig, up or down, by whatever increment is set by the software. So the MDRF USB Knob does the same thing, and it works side-by-side with your regular mouse. Additionally, it provides three user-programmable buttons to control other SDR-software functions. Most of the programs have keyboard shortcuts, and these can be assigned to the buttons of the USB Knob. This includes key combinations that are used–on a keyboard–with the Alt, Ctrl, or Shift keys.
Pete Juliano, N6QW, has been testing an alpha version of the USB Knob that does not include the buttons. You can see his demonstration video here:
https://youtu.be/pBcgmUQYrdo?
So far the USB Knob has been tested on Windows and Linux. It should work on Mac OS as well, but it hasn’t been tested yet. Like most USB devices, the USB Knob gets its power from the same USB port it uses to communicate with the computer. Firmware for the device is being developed in CircuitPython and it runs on a tiny Xiao RP2040 MCU. Knob input comes from a detent-less and free-wheeling rotary encoder.
Stay tuned (even with a mouse) for further developments.