Actually no break-in is required. It is ready to go out of the box. You will probably want to remove the internal battery holder if you are not using it. I did not get the available 18650 battery pack. I ordered the HB-1B off of the Youkits web page. It is the latest YouKits Transceiver and has four bands 80, 40, 30 and 20 meters. I have previous experience with the Ten Tec R4020. The difference is four bands verses two and a continuously variable IF filter which goes down to 400 Hz. That is my favorite feature of the rig. It is slightly smaller than the R4020 also. You can find this rig also on eBay and on the Ten Tec web site at some point.
On Saturday I did some operating from my Dad's workshop in Dothan. I have an Off Center Dipole deployed there. It was a pleasure to have Thomas WD0HBR over. We were able to tweak the calibration on his MFJ QRP rig. This was my first opportunity to use the HB-1B and had contacts on 40, 30 and 20 with good reports.
I have been toying with trying pedestrian mobile. I got a beehive type mount and put it on my lap shack. See photos below. The mount connects to a Buddistick coil and a non-Buddistick whip that I have. I was receiving on the couch and decided to make a call to W5TV Tom on 20 meters and got him. This is not bad for a indoor contact to TX. Tom has an attic dipole by the way. So lets call this Couch Potato Portable. I used a QRPkits BLT + tuner you will see on the lap shack.
Sunday night I participated in the Run For The Bacon Flying Pigs event. I enjoyed using the new rig and exercising the variable filter. I had four contacts on 40 and four on 80 which is about par for me for the two hour event.
So I give this rig a 5 of 5. This was the second HB-1B I received. The first one had some issues. To the credit of Youkits I got a new unit shipped quickly and sent the defective unit to Youkits in Canada. You will be surprised that the shipping from China takes only 3 to 4 days. After the unit gets picked up in China it only takes two days to make the trip to your door.
Greg N4KGL
I enjoy Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio, Field Days, QRP, satellites, and CW. I have many friends in the hobby that make it fun. I will keep you posted on what I learn about amateur radio on this blog.