"My question is this though, why have the radio tower broadcast a repetitive loop of a recording of someone just reading a serial number on just one of the stations??"

im sorry this just got me thinking bout the hurley episode back in season 1. the one where hes in a "nuthouse". a fellow inmate (leonard) keeps repeating these numbers. hurley wants to know why hes repeating them. perhaps that dude leonard was on the island, and helped build the The Swan. The dude Leonard looks like Radzinksi also. Go back and visit the episode 18 season 1.

also, in this episode we learn that daniel faraday is back, and has a suit on. working for the DI. he specialises in electromagnetism and time travel, as we all well know. so faraday must be involved in the swan. thus causing the plane to crash. season 4 E1, we see faraday crying at the news report of the crash and the "BODIES" being found. being asked why he is crying, he replies that he doesnt know why hes crying.

how does faraday exist in 2004 if he was back in 1974 building the hatch? hed have been an old man by then. thus if he was to exist in 2004 and crying at the TV, he never played his part in the swan construction yet. the plane wouldnt have crashed....so then he wouldnt have been crying at the screen...

....but the plane clearly DID crash, so then how did faraday make it to 2004 as a young man if he obviously help build the swan in 1974 lol...but even at that it leads to a time paradox. and faraday is stuck in it...as well as the others. the photo that keeps popping up is possibly symbolic of this too.

see, naultz knows what I was talking about. But better.

I believe that the Swan Station and the Orchid station must work in conjunction with each other. Dr. Chang is at the Orchid and travels to the swan which is where the electromagnetic activity is at its highest. The Orchid station has a lot of exotic matter. I am not a science major and not very good at math but if you could control the electromagnetic power at the swan station and harness the exotic matter at the orchid station this would create a worm hole of sorts and maybe this is the portal that we now see Dr. Chang talking to us in the Comic Con Video.

The numbers are more than just mere serial numbers. They are an attempt to save the world from destruction. Here is a portion of the orientation film from "the Lost Experience" that describes the purpose for the numbers and maybe the purpose of the Swan station

"I'm Alvar Hanso. If you are watching this film, you already know and have worked with Gerald and Karen DeGroot, founders and masterminds of the Dharma Initiative, but now, also know there are (their) many research goals for our joint venture. What you may not know is why we have assembled the Dharma Initiative. Why we have assembled the brightest minds in the world and given them unlimited funds and access. As with all you have already been told, you are bound by your honor and commitment to keep what you are about to hear a secret. In a few weeks, after your induction counseling and survival training, you and your colleagues will be shipped to a top secret- (skip in video). The precise location of the facility is known only to myself, the DeGroots, and a few high-ranking members of my organization. Why all the security, all the secrecy? The answer is simple. Your research is intended to do nothing less than save the world as we know it.

In 1962, only thirteen years ago, the world came to the brink of nuclear war. The United States and the Soviet Union almost fulfilled the promise of mutual assured destruction, a promise they continue to foster through a destructive cold war. After the Cuban missile crisis, both nations decided to find a solution.

The result was the Valenzetti Equation. Commissioned under the highest secrecy through the UN Security Council, the equation is the brainchild of the Italian mathematician Enzo Valenzetti. It predicts the exact number of years and months before humanity extinguishes itself. Whether through nuclear fire, chemical and biological warfare, conventional warfare, pandemic, overpopulation--his results are chilling, and attention must be paid. Valenzetti gave numerical values to the core environmental and human factors in his equation, 4 8 15 16 23 and 42. Only by manipulating the environment, by finding scientific solutions to our problems, will we be able to change those core factors and give humanity a chance to survive. Although the equation has been buried by those who commissioned it-- (cut in video)...panic(ked). It has always been my belief that we ignore warnings at our own peril. And thus, the Dharma Initiative was born.

DHARMA is an acronym for Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications. It also stands for the one true way. And through your research, you will help hu-(glitch)-ty. We have constructed several stations on the island--underground laboratories with the facilities you will need to do your research with optimal expediency. All of the support you will need, including regular medicine and food drops, will be made in perpetuity. A radio transmitter has also been erected on the island, broadcasting in a frequency and encryption known only to us. The transmitter will only broadcast the core numerical values of the Valenzetti Equation. When, through your research, you manage to change the numerical value of any one of these factors, when you have created through science the (video glitch interrupts), we will know that the one true way has been found. That is the work to which you have committed yourself. Change the core values of the Valenzetti Equation and you will change the course of destiny. The fate of the human race is in your hands. Thank you and namaste."

so as you can see the purpose of the Dharma initiative is to change the numbers, to alter the equation. that is why the numbers are being broadcast from the radio tower. Unfortunately it appears that the dharma initiative failed :)

Swan Station was much bigger than what's pictured here.
Just look at Sledge's earlier investigation:
http://lost.cubit.net/archives/2009/03/5x09-the-swan-model.php#more

This is obviously just a part of the station and appears to be the shallow end of it, perhaps near the living quarters. They've either got a lot hillside to dig into, or they need to go much further down.

How would a builder from the '70's had proceeded?

Serial numbers are usually stamped on pieces of equipment that are important to the operation of whatever overall device they're on, so that if they ever need to be replaced you can identify and replicate the piece, right? So that tells me that the hatch door has some sort of 'quality' that is important to the overall operation of what's being built there, other than just as a way to get in and out. Perhaps it 'seals' in some particular way... so as to do something like, oh, say, lock in/out leakage from a Jughead bomb or something. Or perhaps it has a code of some sort that triggers something when it's opened. I don't know, just tossing ideas out there...

So, Dr. Chang's wearing the Swan log on his coat. If the Swan station is supposed to be a secret, don't you think it'd be prudent to wear a coat that didn't make people go, "Hey, what's that logo for?"

I can't remember where I read it - I think it was on one of those sponsered LOST games over the summer- but didn't they say that the numbers originated from this famous equation from some scientist that is supposed to predict the end of the world or something? And one of Dharma's missions was to figure out another equation...or, I don't remember. But it was something important.

Rebel 3:16

I think you are right. The shaft must be the one that Locke climbed down to get into the Swan Station. Which would mean that the swan station is actually underneath all of that gravel and concrete.

Didn't Daniel tell the Others that they needed to bury the Jughead bomb in lots of concrete?

I also looked at the 'shaft' and my thinking is that this has to be the shaft Locke climbed down, and thus were the hatch lid will sit.
Reason: The rest of the dug out area is not deep enough for where Desmond was residing, I mean that shaft was deep.

So maybe this dug out area will be back filled with concrete (and maybe lead), more protection from the magnetism?

I realise the station did have a shallow end, where Kelvin went out in the protective suit, were Desmond spoke to Daniel etc, so maybe this is that side of the Swan station, however, part of it was very deep underground, as I said, down the bottom of the hatch shaft, which is what I beleive is under the yellow scafolding.

It looks like there is a shaft going deeper into the ground right in the middle of where the swan station is going to be. Does this lead down to where the source of the magnetic force lies? Does it lead to where they buried the atom bomb? Is this where Desmond crawled under the station to hit the self destruct button? I can't wait to find out.

Maybe it's important because it's the only Dharma station on enemy territory?

I'm kind of on the fence about the whole numbers scene. Like, it is kind of crappy that the numbers are simply just a serial number, but we have an answer (kinda) as to their importance. My question is this though, why have the radio tower broadcast a repetitive loop of a recording of someone just reading a serial number on just one of the stations?? It might make more sense if they were reading serial numbers from all of the stations over and over again, but just ine seems weird. There has to be more to them than that.

I agree the scene was cheesy. That conversation between the construction workers seemed forced - to say right in front of Hurley, "hey what were the serial numbers for the hatch lid again." - like they would be stamped on in the middle of all the construction. And then when the last number couldn't be read at first so Hurley said the number for Miles to hear. c'mon.
I know the thought out there is that the numbers don't mean anything but I really hope something comes out of that plot line. It was one of the great Island Mysteries during the second season and it would be disappointing if they mean nothing.

Okay, we see that they haven't just stopped talking about the numbers in hope we'll forget and they don't have to explain. I want Hurley to ask Radzinski about them.

Yes, the serial number scene seemed thrown in there to close up the hole left by why the numbers were there to begin with. I never really understood them being on the hatch in the first place.

I'm hoping this isn't where the bomb is buried. It's obvious Jughead will be a plot element, but I'm not crazy about the whole atom bomb thing.

That whole scene when the worker was reading the numbers off to the other worker to stamp them into the hatch was pretty cheesy.

But I do hope we get to see more of the pre-swan station before they travel forward in time again.