[HBR] What would W6TC do?

[Gary Wells]

I have been reading the recent traffic on Ted's HBR designs with great interest. 
Bear with me for this lengthy response. I too have become very interested in 
Ted's experiences as I am beginning work on an HBR-13C. I have been a ham since 
1968 and now I have an opportunity to dig back into an era I really enjoyed and 
try to learn (again) what that period of time was like in home building. I know 
the topic is what Ted would do with more modern technology at his disposal. I 
would have to believe that he would certainly continue with his "work in 
process" as technology changed. Ted's energies with the HBR covered a span from 
1956 to 1969 until his health failed him in 1971 unfortunately.

I acquired two CD's from two gentlemen that have been very instrumental in 
documenting the life and times of the HBR. The first was from Kees, K5BCQ, "HBR 
Receiver and More" and the second from Jay, W6HHT, "Recollections of a Radio 
Receiver." For those of you that don't have these CD's and are interested in 
what transpired over those years I strongly suggest ordering them from these 
guys. They were $10 each and worth every penny and then some. Kees' CD focuses 
on content that is on the HBR website, notes, pictures, schematics and lots of 
great data. 


Jay's CD is also an absolute "must read" if you want to see and "feel" what 
transpired during that period of Ted's involvement. It includes over 200 pages 
of documentation along with the historical time-line of the HBR, comparisons 
model by model, lots of info on coils, stability, section by section 
functionality and reference documentation as well as lots of other readings.

What I found incredibly interesting was that Jay was part of Ted's inner circle 
along with another gentleman, Alex Stewart, K4FX (SK) and many of the letters 
that went back and forth regarding everyone's experience and ideas were put on 
paper, hand written as well as typed. Jay has included all of this actual 
correspondence in his Ebook. I hope the guys that bought this CD agree.

Now getting back to the question at hand. Once you read the story of Ted, Alex 
and Jay, you will feel as I do, that Ted probably wouldn't have messed much with 
the coils. That was an area that was dear and near to his heart as the whole 
premise was stability and sensitivity. He abhorred the thought of any 
band-switch as that would degrade performance. The letters he wrote state that 
20 over 9. Just the fact of using an Eddystone 898 in the middle of the chassis 
versus a National dial on the left side was enough to frustrate him as 
performance was impacted by this unassumingly simple modification.  


He had switched from the tickler coil approach on the front end to a Hartley in 
later years and he was beginning to appreciate other improvements with T notch 
and audio filters from Alex and Jay as time allowed before his health forced him 
to slow down. Even power supply designs were simplified with diodes over a 
rectifier tube to eliminate additional heat that would impact his stability 
challenges. Up to that point it looked like Ted lived and breathed every waking 
moment on his design. Many of these improvements show up in later designs. I do 
think that he would have adapted crystal filters and other technology as it 
became more available and cost effective for "TD&K" (Ted always referred to his 
design being able to be built by any Tom, Dick and Harry).

To many of you perhaps this has been babble and old news but for me it has been 
a very enjoyable read and learning experience mostly because I had a chance to 
read many of Ted's intensely passionate letters on a variety of HBR subjects and 
progressions which really do give the feel of what was going thru his mind. I 
look forward to others' feedback going forward.

Gary
WB9AYD