[Boatanchors] Beautiful HBR-17 Dual Conversion Homemade Receiver

[Whitebear1122]

Hi, I’m selling an HBR-17 dual conversion homemade receiver built by a local physician back in 1962.  It is built from the Ted Crosby/Alex Stewart articles in QST magazine from the early 60’s.  It is basically Ted Crosby’s HBR-16 where Alex Stewart wrote a QST article on how to hot rod it by adding the silky smooth Eddystone slide rule dial, a Q-Multiplier, some audio filtering I believe, and a few other circuit changes.   Adding the Eddystone dial involved complicated mechanicals where the RF front end was placed on a separate chassis on top of the main chassis so the frequency determining variable capacitors were placed at a physical height to accept the Eddystone.  I’ve read where Ted Crosby was not too happy with this project because it violated his basis tenants of the HBR series, that being the receiver would be simple enough for most hams to build.  The HBR-17 and later HBR-13 added another level of mechanical complexity that did didn’t really like.  

I know the history of this radio because I got it from the original builder about 3 years ago.  I have the original invoice from Eddystone dated 1962 when the builder bought the dial from the company in England.  The receiver will come with an original letter from Alex Stewart as the builder corresponded with Alex during construction.

The receiver uses National knobs with clean shiny skirts.  The receiver come with several rare unobtainium coil sets for 80 meters, 40 meters, 20 meters.

In my opinion the radio is in very clean condition considering its age.  There are some scraps and scratches, front panel discolorations. Please check out the photos on photo bucket.com and decide on the condition yourself.   I’ve not had good luck with Apple creating a good hotlink, so if this link doesn’t work, please copy and paste into your browser.

http://s1140.photobucket.com/user/651daisy/library/HBR-17%20Receiver

http://s1140.photobucket.com/user/651daisy/library/HBR-17 Receiver <http://s1140.photobucket.com/user/651daisy/library/HBR-17%20Receiver>


I have a video of this exact receiver on youtube.com.  If the hot link doesn’t work, then just copy and paste the link into your browser.   I was listening to 20 meters at the time.  Agreed, my audio recording is awful.  Sorry about that.  But the video demonstrates the receiver copying cw and SSB.  

https://youtu.be/kqRSI99g1x8

https://youtu.be/kqRSI99g1x8 <https://youtu.be/kqRSI99g1x8>


While I have seen the occasional HBR-16 and HBR-11, and one or two HBR-14’s over the years, I’ve never seen an HBR-17 before because they were more complicated to build.

Here is a great chance to own a rare HBR series receiver.   The radio is being sold as-is.  

Asking $375 plus shipping.  Thanks. 73, Scott WA9WFA