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Wednesday 21 October 2009

HB-1A SMD kit this is what you get.

The shipment had taken just over a week and, there was no customs charge, VAT or extra handling charge to pay, so the radio cost me a total of £137.82. There was a delay in arrival that was 100% due to time spent in the UK Coventry Customs arrivals point but then I expect a couple extra days ude to bottlenecks I have experienced for shipments coming from there in the past. It took 5 days real time to get to my door but an additional 4 days spent in customs!

Opening the box revealed the radio extremely well packed in expanded polystyrene, plus a photo-printed card with a picture of BG2FX in his lab - presumably the builder. There was no manual, but the eBay listing had linked to an English language manual in PDF form that I could print out.

This is a short video to show you what you get.

The PCB has the surface mount all on one side and in this video I show you the board.

I also show the components in this video.

In the video I say the case is Aluminium... the case is steel! I noted that the bag is not anti static and the PIC and semiconductors are NOT pressed into foam etc. I expect I will check those first!

The clam shell steel case (palm paddle magnet will attach to it) is pre drilled well-painted in a black crackle finish. The white lettering is adequate although I do not think it may last too long.weight.

1 comment:

Norm VK5GI said...

Good on you for tackling the kit version! My eyesight isn't too good, so I bought the factory built version - and of course, it worked right out of the box! I was thinking of buying the SW or Hendricks or even the KX but they were all kits. Glad I did buy the HB-1A - I get a lot of pleasure from it and can take it with me when I visit the grandkids on the other side of Australia. Good luck, and kind regards
Norm VK5GI