A Review of the Swan 350 HF Amateur Transceiver

I recently acquired a used Swan 350 HF amateur transceiver for use in my amateur radio station. My first HF transceiver was a Swan 240, and I had been looking to obtain another Swan transceiver for some time. I have always preferred vacuum tube transceivers to solid state transceivers because of their ability to be flexible with antenna systems with a less-than-perfect SWR.

The Swan 350 is a five-band HF transceiver covering the 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meter amateur radio bands. The Swan 350 is capable of SSB (single sideband) and CW (continuous wave; or Morse Code) transmissions. Since I live in an apartment, I have been using my Swan 350 with a modest indoor random-wire antenna system in conjunction with an antenna tuner. Using the Swan 350 and my indoor antenna, I have been able to make contacts to Japan and Australia from my apartment in California.

Although the Swan 350 is a versatile HF transceiver, it suffers from significant frequency drift. In fact, the Swan 350 has become known colloquially as the "Swan Three-Drifty" due to this frequency instability. I have found that letting my Swan 350 warm up for around half an hour before my operating session resolves the frequency drift problem to a large degree. This is a significant difference between my older Swan 240 and my Swan 350. The Swan 240 was ready for operation after only a couple of minutes of warm-up time. But the Swan 350 seems to require a half hour to an hour of warm-up. Without this warm-up time, the Swan 350 drifts up and down around the desired frequency resulting in a steady rising and falling in voice pitch or CW tone. While the drift was not so bad as to render the Swan 350 unusable in its drifting state, the drift is distracting at best, certainly for the receiver of the drifting signal.

Despite the frequency drift and lengthy warm-up time, the Swan 350 produces an excellent quality CW and SSB signal. I often received 599 RST (readability-strength-tone) reports, once I had warmed up the rig and allowed the frequency drift to stabilize. The Swan 350, being a vacuum tube transceiver, is highly forgiving of high-SWR antenna systems, which makes it the perfect rig for a new ham operator or for a ham operator who must make due with a compromised antenna system such as my indoor random-wire antenna.

In conclusion, the Swan 350 is an affordable yet versatile five-band vacuum tube HF transceiver. As long as you are not in a rush and allow the Swan 350 adequate time to warm its tubes, the Swan 350 should provide you with hours of pleasant operating and excellent-quality signal reports. Generally a Swan 350 can be obtained between $250 and $350 dollars, depending on the transceiver's condition. The modest price makes the Swan 350 an excellent starter HF transceiver.