Radio Trivia Challenge: SLC, SLW and SLF--just curious....

[Old1625]

Originally Posted by toxcrusadr

I'll take a guess from old1625's hint. Dials are sometimes marked so the stations are space out evenly, sometimes they're smooshed up at one end. I'm gonna say LC = linear capacitance, LF = linear frequency, LW = linear wavelength...no idea what the S stands for.

OOOOhhhhh! You're close!

And more or less on the beam! Go to the head of the class!

The terms are

Straight-Line-Capacity
Straight-Line-Wavelength (What you're apt to find most common)
Straight-Line-Frequency

The first type describes a variable capacitor where the rotors are of a constant radius, and such was found in earlier radio sets--and less expensive sets later on. The second was most commonly found in more "modern" sets of higher quality. The third was most commonly found in UHF tuners--unless the shape was even more weird.

The first looks in profile like a half-moon shape, the second sort of helmet shaped, the third resembling the profile of a scallop shell.

Such reshaping of the rotors facilitated tuneability on the upper end of the dial, where theSLC configuration tended to make tuning critical and difficult at that end of the sweep.