What up with Swans

[KA4DPO]

So, what is it with Swan Radios? I’ve been casually looking around for a 270 Signet, not because it’s a particularly stellar performer but just because I wanted one when I was a kid but couldn’t afford one. Anyway, every Swan I see on either Ebay or E-ham looks skanky. Was there a notice that came with these radios telling the owner to smoke as many cigarettes on top of the radio as possible? Did it also say to make sure the radio should be kept in a dirty dusty environment? Did it say to eat fried chicken and not wash your hands before operating all of the controls? Probably.

Sound’s stupid doesn’t it. Go look on Epay and see what I mean. Yellow meters, greasy looking knobs with caked on crud, and dirty burnt dial plastic. Did I mention the dust? They all seem to have three feet of dust on them as well. I’m not sure I want to work that hard for a radio that drifts like the homeless with poor carrier suppression and no available filters. Every one I’ve seen in the past two or three years looks like it would take a gallon of 409 and alcohol to clean it.

So, if you have a nice clean Swan, keep it, don’t sell it just keep it. A clean Swan is a rare item indeed.

[K9STH]

I moved this thread to the more appropriate forum.

Glen, K9STH
One of the QRZ.com moderators

[WA2ZDY]

Quote[/b] (KA4DPO @ April 04 2005,11:21)]" . . . a radio that drifts like the homeless . . . "
You owe my wife a new LCD monitor. Of course I refuse to take any responsibility for the fact that I was using her puter and had a mouthful of soda pop when I read your post.

Oh yeah, I won't charge you anything for the pain I just experienced as the soda pop came out my nose.

Thanks, best laugh I've had in a week. WELL worth the price!

[WB2WIK]

DPO, that was pretty funny, but also pretty true.

I never buy anything on eBay for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that no matter how bad stuff looks in the pictures, in reality, it's worse.

I see Cygnets pretty often at the local ham radio swap meets, and now and then one is in "perfect," showroom-like condition -- either carefully restored, or maybe just kept in great shape all along.

I wouldn't pay more than $150 for one, no matter how stellar it was. As you say, it drifts, it lacks features, it uses tubes that are hard to come by nowadays...about its only good feature is its transmit audio (modulation) quality, which, like most Swans, is quite good.

It was cheap when it was new, back in the late 1960s.

Which is probably why most of them look horrible today -- most hams smoked back in the sixties....

WB2WIK/6

[KA7RRA]

Hey don't forget the smell #I have been to a lot of ham-fest and some of the old stuff smells, like the old QST-CQ mags that have been down in a mildew basement
Dave..

[N5BO]

My first 6 meter radio was a Swan 250C. Sure wasn't the cleanest, or best looking radio I've seen. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

The recieve was horrible, but I would get a lot of good comments about the transmit audio. I ended up trading the Swan for an Icom 2M All-mode rig.

[n8yx]

You're going after the wrong Swans.

Forego all the tube versions. Concentrate instead on the Astro 150, 151 and 102BX. All three are completely solid-state; the first two models are synthesized, while the 102 utilizes a PTO/VCO frequency generation arrangement.

Drift is minimal to nonexistent, regardless of version (more on this later). All three offer digital frequency readout, full break-in CW operation...and the 102 has a PBT/audio notch filter, variable AGC and an effective speech processor.

Swan was bought by Cubic Communications in the late 70's and Cubic reworked the lines. Cubic's 102BXA is essentially an updated Swan Astro 102BX with a new paint job, while the Astro 103 added WARC bands, provision for a 400hz CW filter, an RTTY position (LSB with the CW filter switched in) and a jack for a separate receive antenna. The 150/151s got a new paint job and very late model units got a redesigned synthesizer with reduced lock-up time.

Any of these rigs work well in their intended roles, and the 150/151s are great when used mobile or portable, a la Field Day. I really like my 102/103 units for contesting and CW DX work.

I've gotten quite a few of each version off eBay in non-working to very good condition. Parts are easy to come by -if- you know where to look for them. (Anyone needing a source of parts for the Swan or Cubic Astros is welcome to get in touch with me; I'll point you to a few vendors I have dealt with.)

The single most important adjustment one can make to either series of these rigs is the 10.5VDC regulator setting. When aligned correctly, the 102's PTOs are as stable as my TR7...which is very stable as non-synthesized rigs go. The 150/151s exhibit a tiny (<100hz) amount of drift from a cold start, but this is of little consequence in normal operation. Once they're warmed up, they stay put.

[KG4ZQZ]

hey, Swan collectors! lookee here at what this dork is selling:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws....74&rd=1 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4673&item=5765450074&rd=1)

hee hee! and a real bargain at $4 shipping when the real cost is less than $0.83!

[n8yx]

Quote[/b] (KG4ZQZ @ April 04 2005,16:05)]hey, Swan collectors! lookee here at what this dork is selling:

hee hee! and a real bargain at $4 shipping when the real cost is less than $0.83!
The sad part is that someone will BUY it... #http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

(Not me. I've a few "Dilbert" mouse pads to wear out first; besides that, my various contacts at Microsoft, Intel and other computer OEMs seem to keep me well-supplied with the things.)

Someone cobbled together a "TR7 Dude" figurine from used TR7 parts and listed it on FeeBay some time back. IIRC, it fetched over $20.00...

And then there's the Drake 7-line extender cards. One can get them brand-new for ~$65.00 should one know his or her way around a search engine. These very same boards were sold at auction last week for over 3x that!

And let us not forget the cheese sammich which brought over $10K! # http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

P.T. Barnum was dead-on.

[KA4DPO]

Quote[/b] (n8yx @ April 04 2005,16:46)]Quote[/b] (KG4ZQZ @ April 04 2005,16:05)]hey, Swan collectors! lookee here at what this dork is selling:

hee hee! and a real bargain at $4 shipping when the real cost is less than $0.83!
The sad part is that someone will BUY it... #http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

(Not me. I've a few "Dilbert" mouse pads to wear out first; besides that, my various contacts at Microsoft, Intel and other computer OEMs seem to keep me well-supplied with the things.)

Someone cobbled together a "TR7 Dude" figurine from used TR7 parts and listed it on FeeBay some time back. IIRC, it fetched over $20.00...

And then there's the Drake 7-line extender cards. One can get them brand-new for ~$65.00 should one know his or her way around a search engine. These very same boards were sold at auction last week for over 3x that!

And let us not forget the cheese sammich which brought over $10K! # http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

P.T. Barnum was dead-on.
Did anyone notice they spelled it "Swam" in the ad....

[n8yx]

Quote[/b] (KA4DPO @ April 04 2005,17:08)]Did anyone notice they spelled it "Swam" in the ad....
Contraction of "Swan" and "spam" ??!!??

[K6BBC]

Don't by the 270 - it's CRAP. Was then, still is. As Thomas Wolfe said, you can't go home again.

K6BBC

[K4KWH]

Well, I did own a couple Swans back "in the day" and they weren't *that* shabby. I must've been lucky as, having started out in the day of "warming up the filiments", I knew to turn the radio on about a half hour before beginning to transmit, then walk away to tend to other things. Then I would fine tune and talk away. Never had much trouble with "drift".

Now, you can't expect pristine looks, etc. from a near-30
year old radio. Think how many hands it has been thru since it was new:rock:

73

[WA2ZDY]

I had a Cygnet 300 once. It wasn't TOO bad; it was better than the 350, 500, and 700 I had dealt with in the past. But that still didn't make up for the fact that it had no filters, no passband tuning, nothing. Overall usefulness was very limited, at least in my book.

"drifts like a homelss person . . . " I still can't get over that one!!!!

[K7JBQ]

Quote[/b] (WA2ZDY @ April 05 2005,13:48)]"drifts like a homelss person . . . " #I still can't get over that one!!!!
Yep, that's a good one. Here's another, appropriate to the same radio: "Selective as Paris Hilton."

73,
Bill

[K9STH]

Q. On what frequency does the Swan Users' net meet?

A. Pick any in the phone band, they will drift by in a few minutes.

Well, some of them aren't "that" bad. But, many of them were. The only Swan that I ever owned (traded for back in 1968 and got rid of it within a couple of weeks) was a Swan SW-240. At least it was tri-band (75, 40, and 20) unlike the SW-120, SW-140, and SW-175 that were single banders.

The Heath single banders were MUCH better than the Swan single band units and cost about 40 percent as much. I had an HW-12A (75 meter) for a while that I built from a kit and it was a very good performer. Had an HW-32 (earlier model 20 meter) that I got in a trade deal that worked very well. Sold it to a fellow who had a trashed out National NCX-3 (tri-band 80, 40, and 20).

Now, if you want to see "dirty" . . . . I restored a Crosley 5-38 TRF set from 1924 that spent about 50 years stored in a chicken coop. Believe it or not, the chicken droppings actually helped to preserve the thing. But, it was not a "pleasant" duty cleaning the thing.

Glen, K9STH

[W5MEJ]

Quote[/b] (K9STH @ April 05 2005,15:43)]Q. #On what frequency does the Swan Users' net meet?

A. #Pick any in the phone band, they will drift by in a few minutes.
I always liked that joke...

I can't think of Swan radios, though, without thinking of an operator in Alabama I used to hear on the air every evening when I was stationed at Ft. Benning Georgia. #Sadly, I can't remember his call.

He would check in to the traffic net every evening, and always had a big clear signal. #He would always tell everyone what model Swan he was using that night. #He claimed that he had never used anything other than Swan, had owned over 100 of them, had never bought one and had never sold one. #He said that people would give them to him, or trade non-working Swans to him for a working one. #He would fix them, use them for a while, then trade them off or give them away.

I don't know if the story is true or not - I never met the man face to face, but I did meet some people who claimed he had given them a radio. #I do know he always had a big signal, was always dead on frequency, and sounded like an honest man!

73
Chuck

[kb2vxa]

Hi guys,

Swans are old CB rigs that have been replaced and have nowhere to go. I'm serious being I'm an ex-CBer from the pre-lid days. Now I much prefer the swans on our local lake, mind the shore covered with Canada Goose poop.

[K9STH]

VXA:

You were on the Class "D" Citizen's Radio Service in 1958! By 1959 there were all sorts of "letters to the editor" of the various communications magazines complaining about illegal operation, profanity, and so on concerning the Class "D" Service!

Glen, K9STH

[n8yx]

Quote[/b] (K9STH @ April 06 2005,17:28)]By 1959 there were all sorts of "letters to the editor" of the various communications magazines complaining about illegal operation, profanity, and so on concerning the Class "D" Service!
And I see that nothing much has changed in that service in almost 40 years...except for the players. (And the lack thereof in this particular area. 11M has all but died here in NE Ohio.)

[K3UD]

I had 3 Swans. A 250, 350 and a 500. I liked all of them. Yes, there was some drift in the 350 and the 500 but the 250 was pretty stable. it is amazing how many Swans are still around. Swan sold lots of them and I don't think anyone ever threw them away. They also had very good audio and looked great sitting in the shack.

At one time Swan tried a back door way into the CB market. They came out with the Swan 1011 model which was advertised as 10 meter radio with the CB band available if you wanted to listen to it. I understand that there was very simple modification that allowed it to transmit on the CB band. While I never owned one, it seemed like a single band version of the Swan 260 / 270 / 300 series with about 250 watts input.

It was advertised in QST and because the ARRL allowed it to be advertised, it got a lot of backlash from the membership. As I remember it, the ARRL tols Swan that because they were producing what amounted to an illegal radio for the CB crowd, their advertising in QST might be dropped, not only for the Swan 1011 but for their entire line of products. In the end, a shell company was set up called Siltronics and the name was changed to the Siltronics 1011, and Swan continued to be able to advertise their ham lines.

I think the original Swan 1011 (with the Swan badges) is a bit of a collectable today.

Oddly enough, QST carried ads for CB radios from the inception of Class D CB in 1958 and up to the early 60s. Prior to that they carried ads for radios operating in the Class B CB service. Vocoline comes to mind.

Hammarlund also came out with a 5 watt CB transceiver that was built into a HQ 110 (or maybe a HQ-100) receiver. I don't remember any controversy about it, but I think this was well before the Swan 1011 and may have fallen into the period when QST was carrying advertising for Class D cb radios.


This is the way I remember it, anyone have any fill ins or corrections to the story?

73
George
K3UD

[K9STH]

Hammarlund had the HQ-105 which was the HQ-100 receiver with a single frequency 5 watt input AM transmitter. At the time it was legal to use such on the Class "D" Citizen's Radio Service. However, the Hammarlund transmitter would work fine on 10 meters as well and the units were sold as having an 11/10 meter transmitter.

Vocaline had 2 models of Class "B" Citizen's Radio Service transceivers and the AT30 which was made for the amateur 70 cm band. In fact, the unit would tune the entire 30 MHz (420 MHz to 450 MHz) with a single knob (and that goes through 180 degrees with no vernier). Since they used "free running oscillators" the stability was really "stinko"! But, back in the mid to late 1950s there wasn't that much on the 70 cm band so instability wasn't any real problem.

I have one of the Vocaline AT30 units, serial number 0044. They didn't make many of these although a number of amateurs did tune the Class "B" units down below 450 MHz and use them. There are photos of both the AT30 and one of the Class "B" units on the K9STH web site

http://home.comcast.net/~k9sth

if anyone is interested.

Glen, K9STH

[kl7aj]

Well, if it's any consolation, Swans weren't the only Drift-o-matic radios out there. I think the Knight T-150 took the cake in that regard.

Eric

[kb2vxa]

Hi STH and all,

"You were on the Class "D" Citizen's Radio Service in 1958!"

Uh, no, licensed in 1965 actually when there were still a few 2Q calls around, 2Ws had bitten the dust by then. Oh yeah, we had "Igor" who painted the band blue and one of his sons "Connecting Rod" did likewise. It didn't stop there, they were a family of jailbirds, low lifes beyond redemption. That was on the "Jersey side", Middlesex County actually but the real hotbed was........
you guessed it, Brooklyn.

CB always had it's share of lids, only more of them now, roughly the same percentage of otherwise good operators. Here at the shore all I can hear when not listening for "10M beacons" is a few of the old powerhouses in Essex County, CB is DEAD for the most part, died of liditis.

Oh, if you just happen across a CB or scanner mag (one in particular, hint) just about all you see is stuff endorsing all sorts of illegal stuff and not limited to CB either. One noted author writing under several pseudonyms is a HAM from the NYC metro area. When you actively ENCOURAGE breaking the law it WILL be broken!

[kb2vxa]

Hi George UD and all,

"At one time Swan tried a back door way into the CB market. They came out with the Swan 1011 model..."

Ayup! I remember the 1011B VERY well and the "sliders" put out by Swan/Siltronics. There was a whole line of them, each made for a particular synthisizer scheme. They were an instant hit of course, freebanding took off like a rocket. Oh, there always were a few extra crystals hidden behind the books on the shelf, nothing is new.

When you get down to it, the old "money talks" phrase adds up to "business is business, nothing personal" and businessmen have been pirates long before the Jolly Roger was flown from the mast of John Teach's ship. Oh, did I just give away one of those previously mentioned pseudonyms? (;->)

[K4KWH]

There were some fellas that liked the Swans. Fifteen years ago I was asked to dispose of the estate of a ham friend of mine. #He was quite wealthy (owned his own company) and had a basement full of radios and a ham shack that stretched all the way across the room behind his desk. When I began to inventory the equipment I quickly realized this was NO easy task. #For
there were not just one or two radios, but stacks of eight or more of various brands of radios down there! #There was 10 Heathkits, matching power supplies, either
HP 23 or HP 13's. #Six or so Kenwoods, and 9 Swans, 3 or so Atlases plus a whole storeroom full of meters, accessories, and assorted ham gadgets! #Of the Swans, I found one of the 700 CX's NEW in the box (NOS) that had never been used!! It took me three weekends to catalogue and price each item at a price I thought we could get for his widow. #Each trip back home (about 70 miles), my station wagon was mashed down severely in the back (and I had the HD suspension and towing package!) #It also turns out that *some* of the radios did not work, tho most did. One of the good ones was the pristine 700 CX. That baby would put out a 500 watt signal easily and, so long as you let the filaments warm up, it didn't drift. I sort of liked it. "Dink" would burn up a radio occasionally and set it aside intending to repair it later. He would go to a hamfest and see a radio he liked and whip out whatever cash was necessary and buy it. So he had lots of Swans, and they seemed to be a preference. #His widow gave me the choice of an Atlas 350 XL and matching PS for doing the work of liquidating his station. I still have it!;)

73

[K3UD]

Quote[/b] (kl7aj @ April 07 2005,11:53)]Well, if it's any consolation, Swans weren't the only Drift-o-matic radios out there. # I think the Knight T-150 took the cake in that regard.

Eric
Eric,

I never owned a T-150 but it would have to drift a whole lot to beat the Eico-753 transceiver I had. I never encountered anything that drifted as badly as it did. I once had a qso while using the 753 with a mobile station also using a 753. Keeping the frequency synced was impossible. His 753 drifted worse than mine! Made the Swans look like they were were crystal control.

73
George
K3UD

[WA7KKP]

Cigarette smokers don't realize the skanky film that smoking leaves on anything and everything -- from walls to radios. And there weren't that many NON-SMOKERS in the 60's and 70's. Ask Yul Brynner about smoking .. . .

You can remove that mungy scum, but it takes a good soaking in Parson's Sudsy Ammonia cleaner -- remove the speaker so water doesn't warp the cone. A thorough AIR DRYING over a week or two should leave it as good or better than new.

Gary WA7KKP

[K9STH]

As for nicotine stains on equipment: Believe it or not, the residue from cigarettes helps preserve things like chassis, wiring, etc., from the ill effects of high humidity (especially from effects of being near salt water). I have worked on many units that had been near salt water that belonged to both smokers and non-smokers. Virtually all of those belonging to non-smokers show the effects of the high humidity from the salt water like surface corrosion on the chassis, parts, etc. But, on those units that belonged to smokers especially the underside was usually corrosion free.

Now, I am a non-smoker (and have been since I was 2-years old when I supposedly put one of my father's cigarettes into my mouth burning end first) and definitely do not like even the smell of residual smoke. But, when equipment is used in a high salt-water humidity location smoking definitely helps preserve it. I would rather have to clean off nioctine residue rather than have all the problems that being around salt-water causes without the protection.

Glen, K9STH

[K7JBQ]

Glen,

Makes sense. Kind of like home-made cosmoline.

73,
Bill

[KB3LIX]

OK, I bought one of the old Siltronix 1011-B and an Astatic D-104 off "E-Too Much" several months ago, but I got the whole works for $ 75.00 including shipping. With a little modification (ok, a lot of modification) I hope to put it on 10m. At least, I kept it out of the hands of a freebander.

When I opened the package, I was surprized at the condition, No CRUD, No stink, No burnt dial face or meters, looks like it was cared for very well. BUT THAT DOES'NT MEAN SQUAT !

Maybe it'll work, and maybe it won't, but it will be a decent learning experience.

A continuous stiff regulated supply for the VFO, even when the filaments are off, SHOULD improve the stability. Maybe it will, and maybe it won't, but it's worth a try. Can't hurt. If it does'nt fly, I'm not out much. And it's one less radio on the Freeband or 11m market.

As an old timer in radio (not amateur radio) but radio in general, there is someting to the glow of TUBES to warm the "Cockles of my heart"

73,

bill # #KB3LIX