On May 31, 3:55 pm, "RJ" wrote:
I collected antique tube radios for a number of years, and I never
understood how people in the 1930s and 1940s could NOT be driven
absolutely bonkers by many of the "decorative" airplane dials common
on many of those radios. I am not familiar with the radio in question,
but I have seen PLENTY of confusing dials. I never actually tried to
listen to shortwave on any of my stuff, just AM (usually called "BC"
or something similar).

One of the best tuning systems I ever saw
was on an old GRUNO ( 1930s? ) console radio.
( I think the old ZENITHS used a similar system )

The tuning dial was arranged like a clock face.
There were two pointers.... an "hour" and a 'minute" hand.
.... and it tuned just like a clock mechanism.

On Shortwave, you didn't have to remember a specific frequency.
Just that BBC came in on "twenty to four"...
or that Cuba came in on "five after nine".

Made it easy to keep a log of stations too.

rj


Yeah, it was Grunow who made the clock face dial, they called it a
"teledial" or something similar. I've only seen those in ads, not even
in the days when antique stores were loaded with quality old radios
did you ever see Grunows. I don't think Grunow sold very many of those
things, they were just too weird for 1940 America.