The AM Forum

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I thought they produced the 30L-1 way before Rockwell bought them.

If memory serves, that is a pair of 811's; right? So, that figures out roughly to $6 a watt. "Watt" a bargain!

Phil

Actually it's four 811A's, a "KW input" amp.   

O.K.. it's been awhile since I've looked at one. That's only $3 a watt; not so bad.

I guess, comparatively, all BA prices have went up over the last decade.
Collins gear will always be on the top and I can understand why since I got my first A series rx. earlier this year.

Phil

Collins stuff was dirt cheap in the early 80's.  I bought two 75A-4s.  One for $200 (fair condx at best), and the other (damaged spinner knob and vernier mechanism, but all 3 stock filters) for $100. Later, found n.i.b. vernier/spinner knob kit for $35.  $335 for two working A-4s that I was able to fully restore and still use to-day. 

Personally I don't really understand the mania for the S-Line.   OTOH, I have never operated any S line gear for any length of time.  I've been at club and MARS stations over the years that had it, but for some reason didn't appreciate it.

I bought a 30L-1 from someone on Ebay about ten years ago. It wasn't described accurately so I bitched about it. The guy wanted to make up for it so he said he would send another in better condition. A few weeks later the new box came...Rockwell Collins. The guy didn't know what he had there in the estate that he bought. After I repaired the HV diode string ( diode in backwards )it loaded up nicely into the load. I turned a $450. investment into a $1200. deal.
There is a guy in 4 land that must have a nice resource of funding because he buys all RC..S-line, and commercial.
I guess they were a little more rare here since a lot went over sea's for embassy's or military. It's all in what you want and how much green you can play with.

Indeed, the units with "Rockwell" on them are more valuable for some reason.

I once saw in a GSA warehouse a whole pallet of Rockwell S-line gear, with the banding cinched so tight the 811s were popping out of the squeezed 30L1 cases...

In the early days or the later early days of SSB, the S-line was the Cadillac of radios.
Maybe the Rolls Royce, but they're British (or were).

So much so the Heath more or less copied the "look" with the SB-301/401/101 series to "get in" on it.

Thus the interest remains...

                 

It is bad.  That's at least 3 times the going rate for a 30L-1 in very good condition.  Maybe $1K if pristeen, less if not.  $3K is an absurd price for a $600-700 amp.

I picked up a round emblem (Rockwell Collins) 30L-1 at HossTraders in the 90's for $400. The round emblems have Teflon wiring. The winged emblem rigs have plasdick wiring IIRC.   

Anyway, in 2004 I had no use for a quad 811A amp, so put it on eBay expecting maybe $500. They bid it up to $1300!  I just said thank you and staggered in a daze to the bank.

T

I remember that. It was a time of very big change. Everyone was scrambling to own a plastic transceiver with digital readout like the TS-820. Anything with an analog dial was considered old fashioned junk.

I remember a day in 1978 at Hosstraders when there were piles of Valiants and Rangers selling for $35-$50 each.  No one wanted them. They were truly regarded as boartanchors then.

It's interesting how certain things (like 1967 Corvettes going for $2500)  bottom out and then skyrocket later on.   I remember the S-line doing the same thing. We were on 75M one day in about 1989? and remarking about S-line components going dirt cheap - for ~ $250 each - and that would be a great time to load up on them. At that point the Germans and Japanese were just starting to acquire them aggressively.

T

Tom,

If you should ever come across a 1967 Corvette with a big-block for $2500.00, please be sure to call me immediately, collect!

Seriously, I agree with you with regard to the pricing trend and history of many items. Part of the secret is to track obsolete technology items (obsolete in the minds of the masses), such as high-quality German and Japanese (Leica, Hasselblad, Rolleiflex, Nikon, etc.) film cameras, classic vinyl LP records, vacuum tube audio equipment, etc. The pricing on certain select items in these catagories is amazing, although I do think the pricing on many of them has certainly suffered from deflation in the last few years.

73,

Bruce

heheheh...

There was a time in 1968 when I was buying my first car as a 16 year old newbie. I was at Capital Motors in Hartford.  I had saved up money from paper routes and tobacco work and was ready for a used car. There in the showroom they had a used maroon fast back coupe? 1967 Corvette for $2500. It looked mint but was slightly out of my price range.

I settled on a 1964 Tri-power GTO for $1100. The car turned out to be a rat. I had to rebuild the motor as well as strip the whole car due to excessive Bondo and flaking paint. Boy, did I get suckered in, but learned a lot in that summer of work...  ;)

In hindsight that Corvette was the better deal, of course.

A year later, a friend's older brother showed me a 1958 mint Corvette he had for sale. I almost bought it, but settled on a VW instead...  HA!.  Money and gas was the reason.  Later bought another nice 1964 GTO for $1375 that I kept through high school.

At about the same time, I was also offered a 1966 Maroon with black vinal top Chevelle SS 396.  That car was tricked out with speed parts, mags, etc. The most beautiful SS I ever saw. He wanted $2K for it. Just imagine those kinds of deals...

The list goes on an on.  Another time in 1969 I was offered a tricked out 427 1964 Chevelle SS for $1800. The guy put the motor in it and did mucho other work. I got a ride and about had a heart attack.  It was the most powerful car I'd ever ridden in. Probably a good thang I couldn't afford it.

T

You are right about Collins gear being cheap in the 80's.  I bought my S(1)-line then for dirt cheap complete with power supply.  Still using it after a little periodic maintenance.  Still a good rig.  Can't afford the Collins AM stuff now; have to make do with V1, HQ-110, Elmac AF-68/PMR-8.

The Rockwell/Collins-badged gear is in the same aisle as the SX-88, KW-1, and similar low-number/late production sets. The price has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with scarcity and perceived value through being 'collectible'. Some have a true desire to understand the history involved with a company and its engineering, but over the last 10-15 years or so it's been more a case of late arrivals feeling a need to buy a collection to catch up/keep up with the radio Joneses. Oh yes, and the radio 'investors'.

Rockwell actually took over Collins in the early/mid 70s and continued producing the amateur gear with the round 'meatball' emblem until the late 70s when they switched to the Rockwell/Collins emblem. Nothing inside changed. The 30L-1 I have is a late model round emblem with teflon wiring and all the latest improvements. It cost me $200 and a Mosley TA-33 tribander I had laying out behind my house. Bought the matching KWM-2A at the same time for $400. That was 1996. Ebay, the internet, and a batch of new collectors changed all that, but prices for the more common items have returned to pre-frenzy prices for the most part.

I'd be surprised if the seller gets his asking price, but you never know. Collectors (meaning the plastic bag on a shelf crowd) can be a funny bunch.

I had a friend with a broken KWM2 who wanted my help. I looked inside and said no thanks What a PP layout of parts piled on parts. I had a real nice A3 but performance wise it was a hos.
 

I am going to be going over 2 75A-2's of JN's while he is out of the country. I'm going to document my progress on video as I go and turn each one out the best I can make it. I took a first look at the second one today, and ye gods what a pile of worked over crap.  :P

It does have one thing that makes it a real interesting job, and that is that everyone who has ever worked on it has inscribed something to document what they did and the date they did it. There must be a dozen callsigns and dates along with the service they did on the bottom of the receiver. Pencil, pen, stencil.

And it seems none of these guys could solder worth a damn. :D :D

PTO has been opened not once but twice, last time in 1976. It's kinda cool really, the repair history of the set is right in front of me.

I think the "magic" in Collins was the longevity and bullet-proof against bad operators design.
They didn't outperform other manufacuters by any great margin.

Fred

The best thing is that wonderful PTO! I love the stability. Other than that, there are quite a few others that can give the 75 series a good run for the money.

I still love my A2 and I think with a little work, it could be better. The little Heathkit GR-54 did a good job last Sunday night for me; sensitivity and selectivity was surprising and the audio was really good. Stability is pretty good for AM work also; set it once and it chugged along rock steady for quite a few hours after that. It even passed the "bump" test! Sometimes, just $50 and a little elbow grease goes a long way on a decent Rx.

Phil

I have the KWM 2A with the remote VFO and the 30L1 amp. I find it to be nice combination and fun to use. The only downfall is that the receiver bandwidth is fixed and no noise blanker. I have the 30L1 set up with switching network to transfer it to Icom 746 which drives it quite well.

Steve,
WA2TTP

My brother, a major gearhead, had a 1970 Chevelle SS with a 427. You're right Tom, I have never been in a rocket like that thing since. We'd be rolling along in 2nd gear at maybe 20 MPH, he'd put his foot in it and the front end would completely come off the ground, headlights up in the trees. The thing had an appetite for Sunoco 260, at an outrageous 49.9 cents a gallon...

Then...One evening he was doing some street racing on a deserted, 4-lane rural road with the headers uncorked. Damn, you could hear that thing from 7 miles away...So did a local cop...

The thing had an appetite for Sunoco 260

This is because most of ham radio is populated by sheep. They follow the crowd blindly. Many of the hardcore, nutcase collectors of today were the ones who wanted nothing to do with that equipment back in the 60,70's. AM was bad, SSB was good. The ARRL said so and the sheep ate it up.

The sheep later became bored with doing the same old thing with solid state radios and could only by so many of the new models until they had them all. Sometime in the 80's, it became cool to collect older radios and the stupid term boatanchor came into vogue. The sheep followed and the feeding frenzy on old radios ensued.

Rest assured, once the next "new thing" comes along, the sheep will be off after that and boatanchors will be passe.

I've found the "latest ricebox" collector types usually don't last in the hobby very long. I remember a wealthy group of gentlemen on 75M who talked every night about who had the latest ricebox and who had the earliest delivery and serial number. They always seemed to say, "Oh, it has SUCH a great receiver!"   After a while, one by who they all got bored and disappeared. How much can you talk about stuff like that?

The vintage Collins S-line guys have quite a set of roots established, so they will be around for a long time. I once had two S lines. I thought they were "romantic."  Collins S-line front panels have the most honest faces in ham radio.. ;D  Probably more the memory of seeing it at Hatry's in Htfd as a JN in 1965, but couldn't afford it. It was the Holy Grail at the time. Corky said to me one day, as I was about to trade in another boat anchor for the 20th time, "Get rid of the shit and buy some Collins."  ;D

But all in all, to pull out the very weak ones - for raw performance - I've never used anything better than my FT-1000D. I'm sure the new SDR RX's can do better, but I like the computer-less TX and RX all in one dual diversity package.   When the SDR guys start cleaning my clock hearing into Eu, then I'll take a closer look...

T

I sold the S-Line the better part of 10 years ago.

The thing that made me keep it for so long is that Collins was one of last HF sideband rigs ever made, and probably the best, that you could fix and/or modify with nothing but hand tools, a soldering iron and basic test equipment. I suppose you could add the Drake 4-Line to that list.

loved my s line. I think I paid $150 for it in 1984.

I like my S line and I think it is one of the nicest looking stations out there-of course for the original price and current collectors pricing it should be.  I paid a bit more than Derb for mine but nowhere close to the crazy prices that the gear commands now.  For overall operation and performance, I much prefer my Drake 4 line stations (and they also do AM and 160).

But coming back to looks, both ham and non-ham visitors are attracted to my S line setup so it does have "the look".   I think if Ten Tec had hired someone to provide a better "look and feel" to their gear they would have had a lot more commercial success.   Ten Tec has some good performing gear but for some reason (in my opinion) it doesn't photograph well for advertisements.  Also some of the design features (like the excess power protection feature in my Century 21) seem a bit quirky.