| ▲ | floatrock 6 days ago |
| There's a story of a famous observatory that, iirc, kept on seeing really powerful intermittent signals that they couldn't quite hone in on. It seemed everytime they tried to zoom in on the source they couldn't find it again. Signal was quite elusive. They finally traced it to people using the microwave in the break room in a very specific way. Some people liked to open the microwave door before the timer went off. The microwave stopped, of course, but there was a split second where it was still emitting while the protective cage was opened, and the energy that leaked out during those couple of ms were enough to screw with the observatory equipment. Aliens? Nope, just some tired grad student reheating their coffee. |
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| ▲ | plushpuffin 6 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/05/microwave-ov... |
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| ▲ | grigri907 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Believe me, I'm as angry about this as you will be, but TIL that the correct term is "to home in," which makes sense, but nowhere near as pleasing, or visual, as "hone in." |
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| ▲ | ProllyInfamous 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Note: Good enough reason to never just open the microwave to stop heating. Press `STOP` first, got it. |
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| ▲ | ashleyn 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It's not ionising radiation, so probably not all that dangerous at the dose and time. | |
| ▲ | entropicdrifter 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Meh, it's less dangerous than granite countertops | | |
| ▲ | merelysounds 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Interesting, I didn’t know. > The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says most granite countertops are safe, adding little to a house's radon level. It depends on the rock that is used, the agency says, recommending that homeowners concerned about radon get their countertops tested." https://www.naturalstoneinstitute.org/designprofessionals/ra... | | |
| ▲ | ProllyInfamous 5 days ago | parent [-] | | >Radon I live in a high-radon part of the world (Appalachia), and there are so many more benefits to having an ERV[0] than just getting rid of toxic gasses (handles farts, too!). Worth every penny — one will remove stink from the entire 1000sqft house (including indoor cat litterbox), with partial heat/humidity recovery. [0] Energy recovery vent, e.g. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Panasonic-WhisperComfort-60-20-5... |
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| ▲ | pavel_lishin 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | In terms of radiation? | | |
| ▲ | pyman 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Not sure about radiation, but I once tried to boil an egg in the microwave and the microwave exploded. For a second, I thought the chicken had secretly developed human-level intelligence and planted an explosive inside the egg to get back at those stealing its babies. That was my "wow" moment. Then my dad confirmed it was my fault and compared my intelligence to the chicken's. |
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| ▲ | metalliqaz 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| even when my microwave is closed, the interference it generates while running blocks my bluetooth headphones |
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| ▲ | floatrock 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yep. Water molecules resonate at 2.4 GHz (so that's what microwaves emit), which is also the unlicensed radio spectrum that bluetooth and a lot of other consumer radio devices operate on. Not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg here. But the observatory had either a well-shielded microwave or break room was in an adjacent building or something (they did consider "ya know, microwaves make RF emissions, and we're running a sensitive RF measurement facility here"). It was just when the door was opened that the energy emissions exceeded the design specifications. Classic human factors always find a way around your design. | | |
| ▲ | ianburrell 6 days ago | parent [-] | | The microwave came first. The 2.4GHz ISM band was reserved because of microwave interference. It turned out to be perfect for short-range low-power radio because microwaves don't run all the time, and don't go far outside the house. Microwaves have gotten better shielding. My old one used to take out Wifi and Bluetooth standing next to it, but my current one doesn't cause problems. | | |
| ▲ | paulgerhardt 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Well it was radar. The first Raytheon microwaves were really pushing for 3GHz not 2.4GHz. If you like to play Connections, the reason for that is the first mass produced magnetrons were made by gun manufacturers like Colt and Smith & Wesson and the tooling for gun bore holes and magnetron cavities lined up at 3GHz. The official FCC minutes from 1945 [1] indicate that publicly they were marketed for heat therapy massages not food, with a weird wink, wink that if they could get a carve out for using for medical reasons they could also sell it to the Navy for reheating food as well. The ISM carve out came after by a couple of years in 1947 because Raytheon had got an exception for this machine, not the other way around. The whole origin story of why this particular slot of spectrum is full of carts before horses. That water oscillation thing is a common misconception - water oscillates at much higher frequencies [2]. [1] https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-FCC/FCC-Annual-Rep... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01691... |
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| ▲ | sidewndr46 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I lived in a pretty cheap cluster of apartments. I could already hear when my neighbor got home each day, but could also determine the exact time they microwaved their TV dinner each evening by watching the WiFi drop out | |
| ▲ | yencabulator 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I bought a new microwave to stop wrecking my wife's videoconferencing over 2.4 GHz wifi. | | |
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