SWAN CYGNET 270 001.MPG. Post #384.

Nice video from KP4COD on the operation of the Swan 260/270 Amateur Radio Transceiver. During my first years as an amateur radio operator, I owned a few old tube and hybrid rigs, because that was all I could afford at the time. Among my early rigs was a well-used Swan 260 Cygnet transceiver I bought from my mentor, Dean Manley (KH6B). I carried that old rig to field days, portable operations, and even into my garage room ham shack. After I let the old girl warm up for 30 minutes or so, it was fairly steady with very little drift. Combined with a simple 40 meter inverted vee, some ladder line, a 4:1 balun, and an old Drake MN-4 antenna transmatch, I worked the world. I always got good audio reports, both CW and SSB. I usually ran the rig at 50 watts or less in order to save the final tube, which was one of those TV horizontal oscillator tubes that couldn't take a lot of abuse. I later gave the rig to a newly licensed ham who had as much fun with this old classic as I did. KP4COD's video brings back a lot of nice memories. The only tube rigs I have left in the shack are a Kenwood TS-520 (a hybrid with SB-201 finals) and a Drake TR-4, which needs a power supply. I loved working on these old rigs, paying particular attention to the dangers of high voltage in some of their circuits. At least these rigs could be repaired in your shack if you had the parts, some mechanical skill, basic tools, and a manual for the rig. For the latest Amateur Radio news and events, please check out the blog sidebars. These news feeds are updated daily. You can follow our blog community with a free e-mail subscription or by tapping into the blog RSS feed. Thanks for joining us today! Aloha es 73 de Russ (KH6JRM).