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Reviews For: HB-1A by BD4RG

Category: QRP Radios (5 watts or less)

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Review Summary For : HB-1A by BD4RG
Reviews: 32MSRP: about US$260
Description:
3 band portable qrp transceiver with SWL capabilities
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00324.5
DF2AR Rating: 2010-08-01
Great QRP TRX Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I got one abt. 3 weeks ago and I'am very satisfied with this radio for this money.
CW operations are really fun with it (internal keyer, 700 Hz smooth sidetone, clear display and easy menu functions), 5 w output on 40, 30 and 20 m with 13.8 V.
SSB receiption is not very good understandable, but I do not use this function.
A very recommendable rig for cw ops.
73 de JUL
DK6JK Rating: 2010-06-09
surprised Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I got one for 150,-€, for the money I got a rig that is perfect for outdoor, qrp, qsk, easy handling, internal keyer, attenuator,
PD9W Rating: 2010-06-03
Nice QRP CW Transciever Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Recently (May) purchased my HB-1A on Ebay. Comes from OM Julian G4ILO. Nice little QRP 3 band TX. It does what it is bought for. Despite a poor operation manual rather easy to use. Made already several qso's within Europe on 20m using an indoor Falcon Outback 2000 antenna. Next step will be testing portable use in the field. A nice addition to my beloved Elecraft K1.

73 Nico PD9W QRPARCI#13623 GQRP#12994 BNLQRP#1400
W4NBO Rating: 2010-04-26
Great little Radio Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
For what it is, it works well and im happy. Ive used it with a BLT tuner and open wire dipole, Z Match tuner built into a small guted wall power adapter box (like the 12v, etc ones you plug in the wall), a L tuner in a wall power adapter box. Google my callsign and look at the QRP section for these tuners. The L tuner and a 66' wire makes for a very compact station to take outdoors. I simply tune for maximum receive signal, then tweak a bit for maximum power output on the HB-1A LCD. Ive worked stations all over the U.S. and recently Turks/Caicos.

Chuck AF4O
W4AMW Rating: 2010-04-23
FB for Travel Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
You already know this is a QRP CW rig for 40, 30 and 20 Meters. It is very easy to setup, has a very bright display, and is a great throw-in-the-suitcase rig for trips that are designed for purposes other than Ham Radio. It is about the size of a large paperback. It runs off internal AA batteries or an outboard power supply (like a small 2.5 amp gel cell). It does NOT have an internal SWR meter so take a resonant antenna along (a good idea anyway especially with QRP). Most tuners will be at least twice the size of the rig. I have received good reports from any strong station I have called. I prefer to use a bug but the rig also has an internal no-frills keyer as well as straight key capability. My portable bug is a Palm Mini Paddle with the Electronic Bug Attachment. It's tiny and goes nicely with the rig. For my casual portable operating I prefer this minimalist rig over my old FT-817 (I never used the microphone anyway). Your style might be different. Don't be concerned about all the things this rig DOESN'T do. Get it for what it does do and have fun. That's my style.
72 DE W4AMW
N1VW Rating: 2010-02-17
Really Neat Radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased this little qrp rig after reading reviews on this website and good advice from a ham contact in England who owns one. I ordered the rig from Ebay. It arrived ten days later in good condition. I downloaded a manual in English off the internet.

This rig performs. It is solidly built, compact, works off of internal AA batteries or an external source (I use a 12V, 2.9 amp wall wart). The CW signal is clean. The receiver is good enough to pick out a weak signal. The digital frequency display is large and easy to read.

I'm very happy with this rig. Have made contacts all across the U.S. with it on 5 watts with an external tuner and a dipole antenna. All this for around $200.

73
N1RX Rating: 2009-11-05
Good value for the money Time Owned: N.A.
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: 2009-11-03
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: 2009-11-02
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: 2009-10-25
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