[time-nuts] Microwave oven experiments

[Didier Juges]

I ran the oven for 2 minutes while heating up a cup of water (normally just fine for a large cup of tea :). The spectrum analyzer was on max-hold mode at the maximum RBW (1MHz) so that was a lot of sweeps, but the display was pretty much stable after about 30 seconds, after that, it just filled some of the valleys.

I do not pretend that any of that is calibrated in any way, but initially, I thought, with the 30dB attenuation in front of the mixer, I am unlikely to blow anything. I guess I was right, but not by much...

Certainly, the antenna is questionable, and so is the BNC T adapter. Antenna orientation was what it was, just moving my hand in the vicinity caused significant shift in the amplitude response over frequency, but not so much change in the peak value, so I did not try to optimize it.

Didier


> -----Original Message-----
> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com 
> [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of J. Forster
> Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 7:31 PM
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] 4 KV Power Supply Recommendations
> 
> I'm not really confident about your display, because the 
> source is sweeping very quickly. It's probably shifting 25 to 
> 50 MHz in 1/240th second. (The frequency sweep one way and 
> back in 1/120th second).
> 
> When I was playing w/ MOs, I used a standard gain horn, 
> cavity wave meter, crystal detector, and scope.
> 
> You may be getting something like aliasing between the scope 
> sweep and the maggie sweep.
> 
> -John
>