[HBR] My New Old HBR

[Diane Swynar]

Hi Scot...

Many thanks for all the kind words!

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ




> 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
> ************************************
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>
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