Vintage Collins Station
Recently I acquired a vintage Collins S-Line station consisting of a 32S-1 transmitter, 75S-1 receiver, and a 516F-2 power supply.
These units were probably built in 1958 or 1959, so they are in excess of 50 years old. To view a paper I've written for an upcoming publication in Electric Radio describing my repairs and bringing these units back to operation click here.
W5GW Gary operating his newly restored Collins S-Line
The Collins S-Line was Collins manufacturing thrust into the SSB transmission mode in a large and highly concentrated manner. Previous SSB transmission and reception
in the KWS-1 and 75A-4 was shared with AM and CW modes. While the pre-cursor KWS-1 & 75A-4 were a very popular and technically capable transmitter/receiver pair, the S-Line had, in my opinion, many outstanding features that has captured the hearts and minds of many generations.
- It was designed almost completely as a SSB unit just when SSB had managed to wrestle dominance in use over AM.
- The small size and overall attractiveness was, well, sleek and modern looking. Certainly their attractiveness has withstood the test of time.
- The S-Line used a modular building block approach, whereby not only receiver and transmitter were designed to compliment and inter-operate with each other, the accessories such as the station monitor, linear amplifier, speaker, etc. fit within a common form, fit and function paradigm.
Because of this modular and flexible approach, an S-Line station could be integrated into many configurations to suit the user's needs, operating habits, and budget (I chuckle as I write this as the S-Line and Collins equipment in general were very much the creame de-la creame of amateur equipment (read expensive)).
I have integrated my very basic S-Line station so that the 32S-1 transmitter and 75S-1 receiver operate as a conventional transceiver. In this transceiver configuration the VFO in the receiver controls both the receiving and transmitting frequency. Looking into the inside picture below of the 32S-1 transmitter you can see the interconnection cables (those with red shrink wrap over the RCA phono plugs).
Another aspect of the Collins equipment is the superior design and thought that went into their equipment. Almost all of the adjustments necessary to align the receiver and transmitter are easy to access. In addition, with their permeability tuned oscillator (PTO), the frequency stability of the S-Line transmitters and receivers was state of the art for that time period. Ascetics were not ignored either. If you look close on the panel of the S-Line you will see it has a pebbled finish. Legend has it this pebbled finish was selected because Mr. Art Collins liked the pebbled finish on Leica cameras.
32S-1 Transmitter An inside view showing its like new condition