[Boatanchors] Has Anyone Built the HB-67 from the ARRL Handbook

[wa9wfa]

Hi Bob, Yes crystals will indeed be a problem.  Your thought about using the synthesizer blocks is a great one and I would do the same thing.  While we would love to duplicate the circuits using period parts, some of them simply are not available except for custom crystal orders.  When I built my HBR13 receiver I ended up buying a junker HBR11 chassis to get access to the rare Miller 100 Kc IF transformers and the 1710 Kc crystal.  If I hadn’t found that crystal then I would have used your “scandalous” approach.

I don’t think anything has to be hidden, there is no scandal hi hi

Last Spring I built the Mate for the Mighty Midget from QST April 1966 where I tried to copy Lew McCoy’s look and feel of his Mate.  It worked but not well.  Briefly it work pretty good but then didn’t.  I was ready to abandon the project but realized that I hadn’t learned everything that I wanted to learn from the project, so the other week I decided to build a breadboard version of the Mate where the circuits are spread out, reducing unintended coupling, and giving me room to experiment and test.  So far it’s working great.  I put up a video of it on Youtube, under WA9WFA.  I don’t have the crystal filter running yet nor the HF oscillator built.  Using the sig gen for the HF oscillator I got this thing running well on 80m and 40m CW and SSB.  I’ve copied signals all around the country on 40m CW.  Once the breadboard is fully functional then I would like to go back to the compact Mate and use my newfound knowledge and experience to trouble shoot it.  

Thanks for your comments!  73 Scott WA9WFA



> On Oct 9, 2021, at 9:21 AM, Bob Groh <bob.groh at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have also toyed with the idea of building an HBR over the years. Actually
> saw a partially completed one at a local hamfest several years ago but
> price was beyond my budget.
> 
> The crystals will be a problem and I have a slightly scandalous idea: use
> one of the available synthesizer blocks for the fixed frequencies needed -
> e.g. the 'ProgRock' from QRP-Labs:
> http://qrp-labs.com/progrock.html
> 
> I warned you - scandalous!!  I would just hide it in a small minibox and
> tuck it inside the HBR.  It will save you a ton of grief - crystals are
> hard to find.
> 
> 73 and the best of luck
> Bob Groh, WA2CKY
> 
>