Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: microwave power settings



At 15:39 1/30/98 MST, you wrote:
microwave ovens decrease the power by decreasing the duty cycle.

It's interesting to consider the alternative.
The magnetron - which is essentially a diode with bunched electron
'spokes' rotating round the cathode and exciting the multiple cavities
in the copper anode, is notoriously frequency unstable - and varying
the cathode voltage (the anode block being typically grounded)- is a
good way of pulling the frequency.

What Leigh is looking for is a device that is still waiting to be invented:
the triode magnetron ( remember deForest?).

There is no great incentive to develop it presently as far as I know - but
I bequeath this idea to the list - it is not difficult to implement!

Brian