I was recently cleaning out a box of random computer gadgets and came across this. It’s a Microsoft Surface Dial. Simple bluetooth device that rotates left and right. You can also push it like a button to simulate a “click” action.
I had purchased it in a failed attempt to pair it up with Roon and a raspberry pi to control my Sonos speakers. Too laggy and unreliable, so it got tossed in the box.
It occurred to me that it might be useful to adjust the generator output levels in the QA40x software. I paired it up with my PC and configured it. The dial will do a lot of things, but for the QA40x, you set it up as a custom tool. Program the left, right and click shortcuts with the QA40x keyboard softkeys/shortcuts of CTRL Up arrow, CTRL Down arrow and space.
You then fire up the QA40x software and give the dial a long press to bring up an menu where you select which tool you want. Select the custom tool you created and you are in business.
Works great. Just one minor wrinkle. The CTRL Up/Down arrow shortcuts bump the generater output by 1 dB. It would be cool if I could change that to .25 or .1 dB.