Collins S-line
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| source: https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/collins_radio/75s_3b_1117052.jpg |
This post was triggered by a picture I saw of an S-line on a ham's shelf (not the one above), the top was covered by a cloth and there were papers piled on the cloth. This covering will become significant later.
I developed a negative attitude towards the Collins S-line in college. It isn't the radios as such although the PTO range always seemed to stop right about where the band got interesting and you had to switch to the next segment and roll the knob all the way back to continue scanning.
No the problem was actually the radio club itself. We had a 75S-3B and 32S-3 with the matching supply. Very nice rigs, I was especially impressed with the under chassis wiring of the power supply, all laced up and routed just like in the handbook. But actually the thing that was really impressive about the club station to me was the way the facilities people had drilled through the thick plate glass of the window of the shack (located in the student union) to allow the RG-8 cables to go up to the roof.
One day someone reported that the S-line wasn't working. We all looked at it and couldn't see any problems. Finally Larry, the club president, suggested that we take it over to a friend of mine from the Nicolet high school club, Todd. Todd's Dad had a radio focused business and Todd himself was a technical wizard. Nothing obvious was found that evening so I left the rigs with Todd.
Long story short, Larry is talking to Todd on the phone one evening and they come to the realization that someone had messed with some of the plug-in cables (believe they were RCA phono connectors) that were "under the lid". As I recall the S-line used either actual LMB enclosures or Collins made them but they had hinged lids. This makes it easy to change tubes, add crystals, adjust the settings and so on without having to take the rig out of the cabinet.
The hinged lids also made it easy to sabotage the radios.
That was one of the final straws for me before quitting that club. Another time someone had stolen a Drake TR-4 rig from a storage room. Unfortunately it wasn't even something the club owned, it was loaned by a former member who happened to also be an alumnus of Nicolet high school. And I ended up having to tell this fellow that his rig was stolen.
The club itself was mostly a bunch of guys sitting around telling stories. I remember one fellow in particular telling us how he had cheated Heathkit by buying an SB-220 and then claiming that one of the parcels (the transformer/s were sent separately from the chassis/cabinet) was lost. This was before package tracking and when "the customer is always right". He was able to steal an extra power transformer for his next amplifier project. Some of these guys were crazy about high power. The club was just not a good atmosphere in my opinion.
Anyway that's why it's a good idea to keep the top of the S-line covered with a cloth and have stuff piled on it. Presumably it would be too much work for a lazy saboteur to take the stuff off before lifting the lids :)
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm