I have a Hudson Bay brass tinder box that has a 6X glass lens incorporated in the top. It works really good with char cloth, charred punk wood, and charred bracket fungi. I carry a flint/ steel and char cloth inside it so I have two methods of starting a fire. Dom
I wonder if the magnetrons in microwave ovens could be used for comms work: it would be great to have microwave antennas for private comms. Has anyone tried it?
As I recall, the 10 Ghz Band for ham use is fairly narrow, and the Cavity Magnitrons from Microwave Ovens are very Wide Band devices, and wonder all over the place in Frequency, with Temperature. Also just what Modulation for would you propose? CW would work, but would be very wide Band, and AM might work, somewhat, but would take Giant Modulation Transformer, and Mod Amp. FM would Never Work at all as these are fixed tuned devices. Pulse Width Modulation, but again the Modulating System would be the hardest to design, and the receiving end would be a bit of a design issue.
OK, I guess I should have asked the question a different way, so I'll start again: What I know about magnetrons can fit in a thimble with room left over for all I know about waveguides, so I need to know the answers to these questions: What band(s) do microwave ovens run in? Can a magnetron be moved from <wherever microwaves work> to a ham band? Is it possible to cut back the power on a magnetron made for a microwave oven to the power used for microwave radios? Here again, I'll just admit my ignorance and wade in: I guess what I'm really asking is if the fact that magnetrons are so easily available makes them a good substitute for other microwave tubes (or transistors, IC's, etc.). The first question is whether it's worth doing at all. William Warren