Hint: If you're ever doing radio work in the field and need an instant Faraday cage a microwave oven is a good candidate. Turn the power off first to reduce the risk of accidentally irradiating your device, but leave it plugged in to get an earth connection to the shield. (This is how I know an LTE connection can be maintained in a microwave oven.)
Since your WiFi signal, however is almost exactly the same and there are many apps that will show and record signal in dB (as described in TFA). You could measure while the door open/closed if you're really careful not to turn it on. The lithium battery fire could respond very badly to water!
https://www.nrl.navy.mil/STEM/LEctenna-Challenge/
I stumbled across this little project a few weeks back, ordered the parts (just a diode and an led), and it works. Put a bowl of water in the microwave (or dinner), turn it on, then wave the lectenna around the cracks and see where it lights up.
I originally found the lectenna by researching if it was possible to power an LED wirelessly by leeching power from a house 60Hz line. I haven't made any progress on that, so if you have ideas I'd love to hear them.
For the safety's sake, might be nice to also recommend to unplug the microwave oven altogether as the first step.
[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-cont...
I think you're vastly underestimating how little people know. A friendly FYI: seems you're in some kind of a bubble.
Personally I didn't learn about don't-microwave-metal (incl phones), until I was about 20 -- and at that time, I had already been studying physics at university for a year, and knew vastly much more than what most people ever will. I wouldn't say I was a child, at that time.
Be happy if people in general realize that photons and coronavirus aren't the same thing, although they're both small.
Edit: actually there's an example of an unexpected mistake in this thread already, in the comment by hanoz. As mentioned before, listing unplugging as the first step would be useful.
I kind of doubt an independent inventor could bring this to market with today's startup climate.
Especially the kind of inventor who created microwaves for experiments with reanimating frozen hamsters, cough James Lovelock.
(Tom Scott's video "I promise this story about microwaves is interesting" which includes a brief interview with James Lovelock last year at age 101 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y )
Also, unless your electrician had a catastrophic fuck up, the metal cage will never be at live voltage, with or without grounding.
You might take apart a microwave oven and discover that there are actually several pieces of sheet metal in them. Expensive ones connect them by staked wires. The capacitor is usually rated for 2000 volts and it packs quite a punch.
It's the metal grid in the window (with holes smaller than the wavelength of the microwaves), and the metal shell of the cavity, not any "plastic." The same reason the metal grid works is why there doesn't need to be a perfect door seal. As long as as the gap is smaller than the wavelength of the microwaves, it's fine.
> Also, it seems that the outer metal shell of the device forms an active part of the circuit, so if it isn't plugged into a grounded outlet it sits at lethal potential.
The shell doesn't sink RF, it reflects it. GFCI outlets (required in many areas for kitchen outlets) trip at 5mA differential between hot and neutral. No appliance is designed to sink current into ground unless there's an electrical fault.
> Then there is beryllium oxide in the thing...
Beryllium oxide hasn't been used in microwaves for a long time, and it presents zero risk unless the magnetron is smashed.
Recommended reading for you:
https://www.dannyguo.com/blog/my-seatbelt-rule-for-judgment/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-eff...
Edit: They can interfere with WiFi because a microwave could leak a tenth of a percent of its nameplate power and it would overpower your access point by anywhere from 1x to 10x. Access points can, on certain bands, have radios up to ~1W, but 125-250mW is much more common.
It would also be completely harmless even if you were standing inches away from whatever the source of the leak was. Microwave RF energy only becomes dangerous when it is strong enough to heat up parts of your body that cannot cool themselves quickly due to having little/no bloodflow, like your eyes.
You could put a parabolic antenna on your home wifi AP and standing in that beam would expose you to more RF energy than your microwave.
I don't know why HN suddenly has a "DANGERS OF MICROWAVE OVENS!" boner this week...this is I think at least the second article on the subject of the 'dangers' of microwave ovens.
Regarding "the door gap is a long line" - that would be relevant if the beam were aimed parallel (or close to parallel) with the gap...
In other words, why is microwave leaking worse than e. G. My oven leaking heat? Is potential small amount of microwave radiation In some specific way worse than feeling the heat when you open the oven after baking? I know radiation is a scary term but what is the real actual scientific documented risk here?
I know some pregnant families paid more money for microwave tests than their microwave costs and it never felt legit but I could be wrong.
The issue is the gap in a door normally forms a long line.
The fact they interfere with WiFi should make it obvious the average microwaves faraday cage is far from perfect.
Agreed. I just tested with two phones and one phone timed out but the other was able to maintain a connection. That would suggest that my microwave is maybe leaking. However I'm able to use the microwave without any noticeable effects from on 2.4ghz devices.
I went ahead I tried it with a 5GHz connection (the site was practically begging me to) and it turns out my microwave blocks both 2.4 and 5 GHz signals. Pretty cool! If your wondering, it's a decade old Sunbeam that I bought for $30 so nothing special.
https://youtu.be/DCYrrNQc3lM https://youtu.be/6N3P842Nay8
Whether your phone can connect from inside is not a great standard. Your phone's antenna is maybe 1/100,000 the power of a microwave oven magnetron.
Might be nice to expand on "will not work". Wouldn't 5 GHz Wi-Fi failing to connect show that it's even better at blocking, and would easily block 2.45 GHz too? And I'd think that they should block 5 GHz too, since those meshes look quite fine, and they probably try to be extra-safe.
However I do agree that it's probably still gonna work because the faraday cages on microwaves are always overkill (even the cheap ones).
In this case it could be the opposite: faraday cages only work for blocking wavelengths that are longer than the wavelength that it's designed for (presumably 2.4ghz). Therefore it could be blocking 2.4ghz but letting 5ghz waves through because it's too small to contain.
It’s interesting the browser can get access to this information with no prompts
note: do not turn your microwave on for ANY portion of this test
1. Unplug the microwave.But one could also use fridge for this test.
Funny how kitchen stuff was thought to be women's work once.
Clarification: domestic kitchen stuff was thought to be women's work, professional kitchen stuff was thought to be men's work (and still is[1]).
Edit: okay maybe I can imagine you’re saying that women have been competent in the kitchen and men [/other gender identifying people?] have demonstrated not being as competent. I’m really trying to stretch credulity to read this in good faith.
Unless there's a leak, then the chart continues updating while the phone is in the microwave.
Then open the door and look if it could/couldn't keep pinging the server while the door was closed.
(A microwave is ~1 KiloWatt up close, WiFi is ~1Watt and meters away. This is like spreading fear that your house has a warm radiator which is bad because ovens use warmth to cook food).
This basic information is contained in the first very short paragraph of how a microwave oven works on wikipedia.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave#Effects_on_health