HB-1A qrp cw trx

Above you can see my new toy. I have had the radio a few weeks now and my first impressions are of a great little radio thats going to be a great take anywhere fun radio. One thing it does lack which for me is more important than an internal atu is the lack of a vswr indicator. This is probably the only thing i would add along with maybe an internal atu but personally i can live without one. The rx current draw is around 55mA with tx taking around 550-950mA depending on supply voltage /power out . I normally work with just 2 watts so i have dropped the power to this from the 5 watts it was giving out the box.RX coverage is 5-16 MHz continuous.The radio has provision for internal batteries but the fit is a little tight. This space may be used at a later date for the vswr circuit and maybe an internal atu.

This radio has a few features including a memory mode ( used to change bands) RIT/USB/LSB CW , attenuator,4 filter settings,freq lock,freq tuning step,automatic cq call along with adjustable speed internal keyer. There are probably more functions that i have missed out .One thing i did notice was a strange click on 40m on first key down and then another click about 3 seconds after i stopped sending and the rx had come back.On doing some digging on the net it seems the problem may be the low pass filter cap relay being switched out on rx. This only happens on 40m and a few e mails to people who left reviews on e ham suggest some units are doing this . It seems to be the LPF has been made with as few a parts as possible. although a bit annoying it seems the radio is designed like this and theres nothing to be concerned about.

Overall thoughts

I like this little rig a lot . On getting it on the bench and connectiong an antenna i have made contacts with ease with Good reports. It has a few niggles like a tight battery tray compartment space and the click but apart from that im pleased with it and it looks like it's going to be a great fun radio to take out .After a few weeks now of using this radio i really can't put any serious faults to it . Yes it's a minamalist radio but thats how it sold , it isn't meant to be a high end bit of kit but but will give many hours of fun radio to the qrp/cw enthusiast. My thoughts are to make a key using a jack plug along with a miracle whip and internal batteries to go ultra portable. I can't see me not making contacts using the miracle whip if i turn the power back up to 5 watts as i can make contacts using the whip and an 817.