|
New to Ham Radio?
My Profile
Community
Articles
Forums
News
Reviews
Friends Remembered
Speak Out
Strays
Survey Question
Operating
Contesting
DX Cluster Spots
Propagation
Resources
Calendar
Classifieds
Ham Exams
Ham Links
List Archives
News Articles
Product Reviews
QSL Managers
Site Info
eHam Help (FAQ)
Support the site
The eHam Team
Advertising Info
Vision Statement
About eHam.net
|
| Reviews Summary for HB-1A by BD4RG |
|
Reviews: 16
|
Average rating: 4.6/5
|
MSRP: $about US$260
|
|
Description: 3 band portable qrp transceiver with SWL capabilities
|
|
More info: http://
|
|
Email Subscription
You are not subscribed to this review.
Subscribe!
My Subscriptions
Subscriptions Help
|
You can
write your own review of the HB-1A by BD4RG.
|
N1RX
|
Rating: 4/5
|
Nov 5, 2009 05:50
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Good value for the money
|
Time owned: months
|
I purchased one of these when a limited run of kits was offered on eBay at the beginning of Oct '09. This was a full kit, requiring the builder to mount all the SMD devices, etc. At the time the kits were shipped, the building documentation was somewhere between sketchy and non-existant. Still, I enjoy a good challenge. A number of kit buyers joined a Wiki, started by Anders, SM0HPL. The idea was to pool our experiences and help each other get them built and working.
I was able to get mine built and working, with virtually no trouble. In part, this was due to another builder "blazing the trail" and finding things to watch for first. Let your buddy walk ahead and fall in the hole... After building mine, I was immediately able to make contacts with the rig, and do some SWLing.
A post by DM2TA to the Wiki indicated that he had some trouble getting his to work at all, and made some measurements that indicated the preselector was not working properly. As for his statement about the PIC crystal not working until he removed the caps, I can only guess that the wrong caps, or a faulty crystal may have been included in his kit(s). I know of no other builders who have had this problem.
I -did- perform some VNA measurements on the preselector circuits as Andre mentioned. My findings agreed with him, that the input circuit does not tune well below about 6.5 MHz. Even still, I AM able to hear down there reasonably well. I have monitored Gander Air Traffic Control, and other transmissions. The RX sensitivity may be lower than it could be, but it works. On the 40, 30 and 20M ham bands, it works well. RX sensitivity is well below 1 uV. it also receives well on the other freqs from 6 to 16 MHz.
In summary, I bought the rig as a low-cost 3 band HF QRP rig, with wide band RX capability. It -IS- that. The radio design can be improved, and it has already been revised a few times during it's brief lifetime. The built in CW keyer could use a firmware upgrade. I expect that BD4RG will continue to refine the design. I find this rig a very good value for the money.
-Bruce N1RX
|
|
ARRLBOOSTER
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Nov 3, 2009 09:35
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Buy This Radio!
|
Time owned: 3 to 6 months
|
|
For the money you can't beat this little powerhouse. Too bad some disparage it for no valid reason. I love this rig, as do most of the owners. Very innovative and just a blast to use.
|
|
DM2TA
|
Rating: 0/5
|
Nov 2, 2009 22:18
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
SERIOUS design flaws in preselector, PIC16F73 oscillator and PA
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
DONT'T BUY THIS RADIO, UNTIL A NEW SOFTWARE ALLOWS YOU TO CALIBRATE THE PRESELECTOR VARICAP TUNING VOLTAGES!!!
After not been able to peak the tracking preselector equally, I've measured it using an VNA. It turned out, that the preselector peaks NOWHERE near the center frequencies! Should anyone distrust my words, please feel free to measure the preselector by yourself and be prepared of a nightmare of a device called a tracking presel... As of today, there's confirmation of my initial measurements by N1RX in the building wiki at hb-1a.golonka.se.
It's not possible to receive anything below abt. 6.5 Mc, if you've tuned the coils to receive at least something at 7, 10 and 14 Mc - you're equipped with an expensive automatic voltage pad anyhow - the varicap capacitance is simply much too low at 2,46V! Although it's a brilliant idea of having a tracking preselector, it seems to be a huge problem to replicate that in a series of
devices without individual calibration!
According to the 1SV149 varicap datasheet, it becomes clear, why the HB-1A tracking preselector with it's predefined varicap
voltage steps can't work properly: the given 1SV149 capacitance at 1V may vary between 435-540p, at 8V between 19.9-30pF. There are matched groups available up to 2.5% tolerance - but at a price...
My SMD premounted kit (the latest version with strange side-mounted T2/T3) was equipped with two capacitors going each from IC4 pin 9 and 10 against ground. With the supplied crystal the 16F73 oscillator didn't start to oscillate at all! I had to REMOVE them to get the oscillator working! I doubt, the PIC osc crystals provided with the latest kits are either the wrong type (series vs. parallel resonance mode) or are not within other specifications.
Did you ever asked yourself the question: what the heck's the purpose of D8 (43V Zener), as the PA transistor Q9 (2SC1162) is specified by an ABSOLUTE maximum collector to emitter voltage of 35V?? So if on the downside your PA transistor once pops out(might - no protection) - you get lucky on the upside anyway - the protection device D8 stays alive at least...
So BD4RG, provide each of your customers either with the type of varicaps, you used during HB-1A development (those must be extemely close matched by specifications) or better, send everyone of us a new PIC16F73 with a new firmware, allowing us to calibrate the DAC voltages at every of the 15 tuning steps individually!!!
Vy 73 de André - DM 2 TA
|
|
CT1BWW
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Oct 25, 2009 03:07
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
SUPER LITLE RIG!
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
I'm writting this review after almost 2 months when I receive my HB1 Tribander Transceiver. I'm ver Surprised with Capabilities this SUPER Litle QRP very Good Reception and good on Transmiting. I'm using with a Z817-LDG ATU, and a Black Widow Paddle from W5JH , I'm still using at home, but Next future will use at field as Portable on my litle Car. I'm looking now for a good antenna using as Portable. The Transmitter is about 4 Watts but you can do it a Lot with so litle power, HB1 as a Nice Reception, I believe with a good wiring system you can disfrute and have lot of fun with this SIPER LITLE RIG! Thanks to BD4RG !
See you on the Bands! QRP is a Great Challenge !
73s, Marq/CT1BWW
|
|
DL6VN
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Oct 9, 2009 11:36
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Cute little radio
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
Received the trx today after having ordered it about two weeks ago via Ebay. Payment and shipping went without any problems, the transaction being very friendly and professsional. My first impression: A great little rig, just what you want for mobile/holiday QRPing. Sensitivity is above average, even on a poor antenna. VFO control is a little awkward due to the fact that you cannot directly jump from one band to another but have to click your way through the tuning range. However, one can always use the MEM function to quickly change the bands. Otherwise, operation of the rig is simple and straightforward. The sidetone is rather on the soft side and barely audible, compared to the audio sound which is crisp and clear and sufficiently loud.
Some suggestions for improvements:
- direct bandswitching
- keyer could do with a few more memories than just one single cq loop
- louder sidetone
- option to switch off the display illumination
To sum up: At appr. only 150 EUR plus shipping, this little transceiver is exceptionally good value for money. To be recommended!
|
|
VR2XMQ
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Oct 4, 2009 08:26
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Impressed!
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
I am very impressed by the performance of this 3 band transceiver by BD4RG. The sensitivity and selectivity are very good, the size is nice and small for portable mountain topping.
AM reception works but wider filter bandwidth would have been better. The general coverage is a treat. All the basic functions are there to make operation effective and the transceiver is quite user friendly.
I have heard that a new SSB/CW is on the drawing board for next year, let's see?
|
|
K4TMN
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Sep 28, 2009 15:10
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Excellent quality and performance!
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
I bought this about the same time I bought my Yaesu FT-817 rig. They aren't the same in many respects, but the HB-1A performs almost as well as the FT-817 with its InRad 300Hz CW filter! The sensitivity is the first thing that I noticed, it is as good as any of my HF rigs (Kenwood TS-430S, Yaesu FT-450, Yaesu FT-817). The selectivity is what was really outstanding!
So, after finding an inexpensive 12 volt, 3 amp switching supply from MPJones (MPJA.com) for less than $10, I can now run it from mains power or batteries.
The transmitter puts out about 4 watts on a 12 volt supply. I was able to immediately make a CW contact on 40 meters with no problem at all on my dipole antenna!
The functionality is great. There are four filter widths for CW (from 400Hz to 900Hz) and four filter widths for SSB (1600Hz to 2200Hz). This model only transmits CW, but you can receive CW, SSB, and AM for shortwave broadcasts.
For the money, I would be hard pressed to find a new or used QRP rig with the quality, features, and small size that the HB-1A has. This is the perfect rig for traveling very light weight.
To top it off - the beautiful, blue, backlit LCD display is perfectly readable from almost any angle.
If you want a fantastic QRP CW rig, but don't have a lot of money to spend or just want a tiny fun QRP rig to play with, this is the one to get. I highly recommend it!
Tom, K4TMN
|
|
W9HC
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Sep 22, 2009 16:38
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
A Really Neat Little Radio!
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
I won't repeat the info on features that are quite correctly mentioned in the other reviews. My experience with the HB-1A has been both good and bad, with the good being triumphant in the end. Let me explain - I am having a blast with the radio and making good QSO's... now that I have one that works properly. My first one wasn't hearing very well. It hardly detected WWV. But here's where the story gets good. I wrote to Yimin and told him my problem. He responded immediately with a return authorization and a promise of good service. And he came through 100 percent! Within a few days, he had a replacement rig sent to me from China, and it works like a charm. So fellow QRPers, you can stop wondering "what if something goes wrong?" In my case something certainly did, and it was handled better and faster than most any of the other (and much bigger) companies would have done. It's too early to know the general failure rate of the HB-1A, but I'm guessing it is going to prove to be pretty low. This is a tough little radio that really is fun to use. At this point a "5" rating is not only for a great product, but also for some really great warranty service to back it up. I can't wait to go QRV with this little gem.
Steve
W9HC
QRPARCI#7074
|
|
IZ0PXT
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Sep 21, 2009 11:52
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Very Good Qrp Rig !!
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
I got it today,unpacked and linked to my MP1 superantenna on the balcony, dispite the very bad propagation I got very good reports in 30 meters from Poland and France. The receiver is fine and selective.
Very well buildt,easy to use and cheap !
Thanks BD1RG !
73 de IZ0PXT
|
|
NI9Y
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Aug 30, 2009 09:04
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Fantastic QRP Rig
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
The HB-1A arrived at 11 AM on August 18th hand delivered by my postman. I carefully cut the clear tape from the used cardboard packing box fashioned around the carrying case. I surely didn't want to accidentally cut through to the prize inside. My first reaction was this is a tiny rig. I immediately plugged in an external 12VDC battery and the display came alive bright blue and easy to read even outside. The headphone audio level was more than adequate. I tuned around the 20 pre-set memories and heard signals immediately. So I called CQ on 14.060 and made a contact. The selectivity was more than I hoped for. The built in keyer, memory CQ and selection of CW, LSB, USB, RIT, was just like any modern transceiver. In my personal opinion you cannot go wrong buying this neat QRP 3 band transceiver. Comparing it with the KX-1 it's slightly larger. The most striking feature is the full QRG digits 7.005.00 as an example. There's no built in tuner. Congratulations to BD4RG for his quick e-mail responses to my questions on how to set the memory iambic keyer with my call-sign. The initial instructions lacked clarity. He then revised the manual. The only con is the CQ memory feature adds PSE before the K. Like sending dr Dan.
I bought mine before the sale price increased and got the handy carrying case free for placing my order in advance.
By the way in case you are wondering the QRG display reads exactly the same as my IC-775DSP on receive and transmit. The keying is excellent and you will not be disappointed. Five watts output on an external battery and about 3 to 4 watts on the internal eight AA cells. If you use Li cells the output is slightly lower than alkaline cells. For my purposes I use alkaline cells but will install Li cells when I take the rig TTF.
|
|
If you have any questions, problems, or suggestions about Reviews,
please email your Reviews Manager.
|
|
|
|
|
