[HBR] My New Old HBR

[Freeberg, Scott (STP)]

HBR Friends,

I took Thursday and Friday off last week for some 'radio days'.  I spent
several hours Thursday cleaning up my newly acquired HBR-16 that arrive in
the mail earlier in the week.  I pulled the chassis out of the cabinet.
There was dust and stuck on grime in there but no rust or corrosion. The
chassis cleaned up shiny and bright, same for the tube shields.   

The chassis and front panel construction is top notch and very professional
looking.  I put the cabinet in the basement sink and scrubbed it with soap
and water.  It came out looking good.  After it dried I followed up up with
an application of WD-40 on the entire cabinet surface.  WB-40 replenishes
the moisture in the dried out paint and brings back the lusture.  I don't
know, is it natural for an HBR to have a 'lusture' ??   Maybe only fancy
schmancy radios have lusture :^)   The knobs are the same ones from the QST
article with the exception of having dial skirts on them.  The knobs cleaned
up fine.  The radio looks great.  It is almost an exact copy of the original
HBR photo's on Kees website. 

I disconnected the ac power receptacle on the chassis rear and put on a 3
wire cord.  I didn't even need to drill a hole for the power cord. There was
a grommeted hole just waiting for it. Its show time.  The HBR powered up
right away and I was surprised to hear good sounding signals on 40 meters.
I put the 20 meter coils in and spent a couple of hours listening to 20
meter cw and ssb.  The radio appears to be stable, the cw signals sounded
very good, meaning good tone quality, good frequency response.  The National
dial tuning is alot heavier than I like.  I did grease up the mechanism but
it didn't make a noticeable difference.  I ran some brief side by side
comparisions with my Collins 75S3B and I found the HBR to be as sensitive as
the 3B on all signals that I compared.  I'll put the URM25D signal generator
on and see how sensitive it is.  I copied quite a bit of 20 meter cw DX that
day.  There is something special listening to cw on a homebrew receiver,
even if it was built by someone else!! It must sound even more special when
you build it yourself. 

There is a weak signal present all the time that I need to attenuate or
eliminate.  To avoid it, I adjusted the BFO to zero beat it out.  It
probably has something to do with the the first or 2nd oscillator.  I need
to review my receiver theory.  Its after the RF amp because the RF gain does
not affect it, but before the mixer state because the signal is amplified
along with everything else when the mixer gain is adjusted.

No coils were mentioned when I bought the radio so I assumed I'd be winding
my own.  I was pleasantly surprised to find 4 sets of coils, 10, 15, 20, 40
meters.  All in all I am really impressed with the radio and it will be a
pleasure to put on the air.

I just about blew my ear drums out that first time.  I plugged my headphones
in the rear jack that I thought was for the phones.  I know I know (now) its
for the speaker.  Anyway, nothing came out so I switched the front panel
speaker/headphone switch to speaker.  The volume was set high........
Ouch....

I'll take some close up photos and ask Kees to put them on his website.  

I don't know who built the radio.  The seller didn't know and I didn't find
any name or callsign on the cabinet or chassis.  Too bad as it would have
been fun to find out who made it.  He did an incredible job.

So just as I'm starting to get excited about all this homebrew stuff, Eddy
Swynar VE3CUI - VE3XZ sent me 8 emails containing 16 photos of his homebrew
receiver, transmitter, and vfo.  I think Eddys trying to motivate me.   Now
there is a gorgeous well made homebrew station.  Eddy is a master builder
and has built a beautiful station.  
I just gotta build me some of that :^)   Thanks Eddy.

73,  Scott WA9WFA
Proud HBR-16 owner, Hopeful HBR-13 builder