Recent investigations on elastic behaviour, using uniaxial compression measurements of the swelling degree of poly(dimethylsiloxane) rubber (PDMS) networks lead to the assumption that a transition from the affine to the free-fluctuating phantom network occurs. To study the swelling process in different solvents, PDMS networks with different crosslink densities, molecular weight distributions and memory terms were synthesized. Additionally, another fast method for network characterization is given by the analysis of the transversal nmr relaxation. For elastomer networks, well above the glass transition temperature T-g, the presence of topological constraints and permanent crosslinks leads to a non-zero average of homo- and hetero-nuclear interactions, which results in a solid-like relaxation behaviour. The shape of the decay of proton transversal magnetization, using the Hahn echo sequence in the dry PDMS network, is related to the crosslink density. The results of the nmr experiments are compared with compression measurements on dry and swollen networks.