I’m planning to go up Urra Moor / Round Hill tomorrow. This is SOTA G/TW-001, about an hours walk from Clay Bank Car Park. I’ve had a YouKits HB1B Chinese QRP 4 Band CW TX/RX for over 10 years and it needs using again! It must be 5 years since it was on the air - it’s only done a handfull of activations in its life, as I have a KX3 which well outperforms it and gives me multipde operation of course. When I got ithe HB1B out of the cupboard there was something rattling about inside. I needed to find out what this was… I also noticed that there was a small Philips screw on the side of the case near to the BNC without anything attached to it - “it came away in my hand Chief” as we used to to say in the RAF! You can see the screw in the last picture near the external battery… Knobs removed and the case came apart no problem.
Turns out that the nut rattling about inside was for the screw and a small insulated pad. They were meant to be holding the output transistor Q12 to the case and provide heat sinking. I don’t have a circuit diagram for the HB1B. Good job I checked before, I headed up Round Hill tomorrow with the QRP rig in my rucksack!
All screwed back together again now and an on air radio check from home was conducted… Around ten CQ QRP de G4OBK calls on 7030 KHz produced nothing, but there were several hits on PSK reporter. I moved to 20m 14061 KHz and there was @CT7AUP/P QRV on SOTA summit CT/BL-009 (10 points). Second call with my 3.75 Watts and David was in the log, a successful SOTA chase.
I am confident with this radio that when I am on G/TW-001 tomorrow I will get some HF CW QSOs.
As insurance I will also be taking my FT65 and RH-770 Whip and will endeavour to make a few 2m FM contacts with that.
Accompanying me on my activation will be Pippa, a Border Terrier on her first activation, aged 18 months. We got her in September 2023 after Treacle died a month previous. I hope she has the patience to sit around for an hour like Treacle used to do while I complete my activation! 
73 Phil G4OBK
