Siltronix 1011D

[rev ike]

Hello there, is anyone familiar with the 1011 radio made by siltronix and the related pros and cons of owning one?

[Night Crawler]

The 1011C,1011D and 1011D Comanche was manufactured by Swan in the mid to late 70's era. The 1011 was advertised in QST and a number of other Ham related magazines until the FCC got involved and to save the advertising of Swan in the magazines the ad was pulled and the name of the transceiver changed to Siltronix.

All tube rig except for the VFO an 8950 sweep tube being used as the final around 100 watts pep SSB.
Carrier output on AM around 20 watts.
Vfo drifts a bit until warmed up.
The receiver's not the greatest but ok.
SSB and AM operation the problem with it being used on AM a carrier is injected into only one of the sidebands with the carrier balance control. If not set properly it will cause it to sound like it's halfway between am and sideband if to much carrier it sounds fuzzy and distorted. Not a good AM performer but on SSB it has a nice clean sound.

[Foxhunter]

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Well it's hard to top the above post from Night Crawler, nor could I. My understanding as far as "con's" go is that it was often complained that they drifted quite a bit. Who knows, maybe some of the complainant's hadn't thoroughly warmed up the radio as long as they should have, but it's often mentioned. Same with many of the Swan's. The other drawback that could easily be said of the radio, at least nowadays, is the current cost of the final tube, they aren't cheap. And they are only going to continue to rise in price. Basically, you can sometimes buy a whole Siltronix 1011 rig for about the same price as one or two replacement GE8950 tubes, maybe even getting the radio for even less sometimes in a deal. Basically, if you buy a radio with just a blown final---it'll cost $40-$75 to replace the tube alone (unless you find a deal on one). And yes I have seen the 8950's sell for up to $100 each (outrageous), so look around if you end up needing one. So buying a 1011 rig that has good output will be an important step and help you avoid possibly doubling what the initial purchase price was.

I've seen two of these rigs brand new in the box sell recently at auction, bidders went crazy. They have a really cool retro look to them with a black & silver deco scheme and in my opinion are a neat looking radio. I bought my Siltronix 1011C off of a Ham who lived up in North Jersey, who was selling off all of his station equipment. I admit, I've never done anything with the radio yet save give it a good cleaning, and it's in excellent cosmetic shape anyway and is thankfully with it's original operator's manual, plus the matching Swan external meter. I'd like to get the matching digital frequency counter one of these days. Neat looking rig overall. I've wondered about the audio from this series of radios myself, since they are tube rigs, and had hoped it might sound good on AM. These were supposedly immensely popular with freebanders back in the day, but if you happen to buy one that's bone-stock, it'll only give 11M RX and a small mod will need to be done to open up TX. These radio's are still very collectible and have their own following to this day. Well here's at least maybe a few extra things to consider and hope to see you posting a little more often there Rev Ike----wish you the best new year.


A couple of quick (and favorable) Eham reviews
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I'd recommend the following website below to anyone seriously interested in these radios. Last year I emailed the owner of the site and he was pretty good about answering my questions, very polite. A great Siltronix Swan website FULL of information and pic's!

The Swan Siltronix Home Page
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Foxhunter 351 NJ

['Doc]

Having been a Swan user once, I can say that there is a reason why most of them had a two 'stage' tuning dial, coarse and fine. The coarse dial got you close, the fine dial -always- had your fingers on it to stay put! The drifting problem dealt with heat, and there were a few 'fixes' for them, none of them all that easy. They were not bad radios in their 'time', but they also were not exactly the best either. Unless you just like dealing with older stuff, the best advice I can think of is to stay away from them. Especially because of the tube supply situation now, there are very, very few of them that would be a good deal. Another thing is that they were from the time when power was figured on input, not output, so whatever is claimed for them, cut it in half, at least. They deal with plate voltages that really will 'bite' you. Take care.
- 'Doc

[385]

A 1011D is what I learned ssb on. Had shure 444 red letter mic, freq counter and speaker but it was blown. Loved that old rig, drifter or not. Sold it to a buddy of mine and about 3 yrs later I bought a Siltronix LA-600 amp and a matching swr/watt meter. It got stole from a storage building I had rented.