I was a kid, so don’t remember everything as my Dad explained it, but it used a more powerful magnetron with a pulse system and used a fan to blow the heat. It also cooked hot pockets without leaving the outside cold and lava inside. Moreso than that, I don’t remember as it was a tech geek dad talking to a 12yr old teenager that only cared to listen to the first half. I was a shit, and I regret ignoring the trove of knowledge that man had.
Also, most microwaves won’t do much with silverware as is, this just kinda went a level higher. It was from a restaurant that never paid up, and the shop always sold the leftovers for cost of parts to make up the difference. Our vcrs, vacuums, audio receivers, and other things came from that shop (also scratch and dent from some store I can’t remember the name of, it had a weird shopping procedure. They had display items and cards, and at checkout you handed the cards over and the items were brought down a conveyor belt from the storehouse in the attic. The broken things were sold cheaply in a room in the back)
Edit: looked it up, the name of the store was Service Merchandise
It might have had something that can shift its frequency.
What happens in most microwaves is you get a standing wave. The high and low parts of the wave are always at the same spot. You then get a hot spot at the peak (and trough) of the wave, and a cold spot when the wave is near the zero node.
By shifting the frequency, even just a little, you can shift the hot spots around and more evenly cook the food.
This is obviously more expensive, and these days you can get it in higher end residential microwaves. Way back when, though, it was only something you’d see in industrial models.
If I’m thinking about it correctly then either the standing wave is intentional or the oven is designed badly. You know the wavelength so you can make sure the oven is not an integer multiple of it and the hot spots move around on their own, no fancy frequency shifting required.
I was a kid, so don’t remember everything as my Dad explained it, but it used a more powerful magnetron with a pulse system and used a fan to blow the heat. It also cooked hot pockets without leaving the outside cold and lava inside. Moreso than that, I don’t remember as it was a tech geek dad talking to a 12yr old teenager that only cared to listen to the first half. I was a shit, and I regret ignoring the trove of knowledge that man had.
Also, most microwaves won’t do much with silverware as is, this just kinda went a level higher. It was from a restaurant that never paid up, and the shop always sold the leftovers for cost of parts to make up the difference. Our vcrs, vacuums, audio receivers, and other things came from that shop (also scratch and dent from some store I can’t remember the name of, it had a weird shopping procedure. They had display items and cards, and at checkout you handed the cards over and the items were brought down a conveyor belt from the storehouse in the attic. The broken things were sold cheaply in a room in the back)
Edit: looked it up, the name of the store was Service Merchandise
It might have had something that can shift its frequency.
What happens in most microwaves is you get a standing wave. The high and low parts of the wave are always at the same spot. You then get a hot spot at the peak (and trough) of the wave, and a cold spot when the wave is near the zero node.
By shifting the frequency, even just a little, you can shift the hot spots around and more evenly cook the food.
This is obviously more expensive, and these days you can get it in higher end residential microwaves. Way back when, though, it was only something you’d see in industrial models.
If I’m thinking about it correctly then either the standing wave is intentional or the oven is designed badly. You know the wavelength so you can make sure the oven is not an integer multiple of it and the hot spots move around on their own, no fancy frequency shifting required.
It’s not entirely by choice. There’s a limited range of frequencies available.
Thank you for the call out to Service Merchandise. As a kid, that store was awesome.
I saw my first Jaguar system there… and was immediately told I’d never have one because of its expense.