Test Microwave for Radiation Leakage

This was one of my first app ideas about 10 years ago. Unfortunately my microwave had a mechanical timer such that if you opened the door when it was running the microwaving would stop, and on closing again it would resume. Unbeknown to me the door had been so opened, and on closing, with my HTC Desire inside, it duely resumed.

Neat idea, though it&#x27;s not a definitive test. In my experience a microwave oven cavity provides about 40dB attenuation, and it&#x27;s possible to maintain an LTE connection with that sort of path loss.<p>Hint: If you&#x27;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.)

An alternative method: build a LEctenna.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nrl.navy.mil&#x2F;STEM&#x2F;LEctenna-Challenge&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nrl.navy.mil&#x2F;STEM&#x2F;LEctenna-Challenge&#x2F;</a><p>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.<p>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&#x27;t made any progress on that, so if you have ideas I&#x27;d love to hear them.

Idk if OP is the person who wrote this, but on my device the red text about not turning the microwave on is not especially legible. I’d probably make that text a bit bigger and&#x2F;or brighter. I expect most HN readers will know not to microwave a phone but you’d be surprised what people might do.

Actually, this is not as stupid as it seems. I was first baffled by the idea that a website can read the RSSI of the device I&#x27;m on, then I realized its probably just measuring the latency by pinging every second.

I remain in awe that we trust the very cheapest plastic under repeat load and thermal cycling to form a -40dB seal, turning 700W into 70mW. Also, it seems that the outer metal shell of the device forms an active part of the circuit, so if it isn&#x27;t plugged into a grounded outlet it sits at lethal potential. Then there is beryllium oxide in the thing...<p>I kind of doubt an independent inventor could bring this to market with today&#x27;s startup climate.

You would need to take your access point and wave it all around various directions in the space around the microwave. The “leak” could occur in a direction that doesn’t have significant signal. Might be a better test to cook a large bowl of water, while testing your phone (outside the oven) on 2.4ghz … holding it on all sides of the oven to see if any areas degrade the signal. This testing approach isn’t that conclusive.

Neat idea!<p>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&#x27;s a decade old Sunbeam that I bought for $30 so nothing special.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ibb.co&#x2F;JFcZp9H" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ibb.co&#x2F;JFcZp9H</a>

Brilliant. The best part of this was running into the kitchen while my girlfriend was washing dishes and watching her face as I put my phone in the microwave ;)

Or, just use an Ubertooth sniffer. From anywhere near a running microwave you should see it in the 2.4gh range. Its cool to see how some microwaves vary the frequency up and down during a cycle. It looks like a standing wave bouncing back and forth. This also explains the common office phenomena of the wifi dropping every time someone nukes something.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;DCYrrNQc3lM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;DCYrrNQc3lM</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;6N3P842Nay8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;6N3P842Nay8</a><p>Whether your phone can connect from inside is not a great standard. Your phone&#x27;s antenna is maybe 1&#x2F;100,000 the power of a microwave oven magnetron.

I needed to test behavior of an app on an actual iphone with flaky cellular and thought a microwave would be a great place to simulate this. It wasn&#x27;t. The cellular connection was unaffected. Wrapping the phone in aluminum foil killed the signal enough though.

with your phone outside , graph rssi and noise . turn on the microwave you will see it drop

&gt; 1. Put phone on 2.4ghz wifi (5GHZ WILL NOT WORK!)<p>Might be nice to expand on &quot;will not work&quot;. Wouldn&#x27;t 5 GHz Wi-Fi failing to connect show that it&#x27;s even better at blocking, and would easily block 2.45 GHz too? And I&#x27;d think that they should block 5 GHz too, since those meshes look quite fine, and they probably try to be extra-safe.

My bluetooth speaker always cuts out when nuker is on, but never notice any issues with wifi - wonder why.

Is this is an IQ test?

This thing is totally insane. Instructions are not clear at all and the risk that someone bakes a phone in a MWO or doesn&#x27;t any other harmful thing is rather high. Please remove this post.

Too much call of the void in this tool. The phone is in the microwave. I could push start. All I need to do is push start. Just...zap. Poof. Sizzle.

related question... I have a bluetooth headset (aftershokz aeropex), when my microwave is running the audio from my phone seems to get interrupted. think it also happens if just the phone is near the microwave. should I be concerned ?

What does this chart indicate?

Alternatively, you could buy a microwave leak detector for $20-30.

So should I be concerned if the phone seemed to keep pinging just fine inside the Microwave? I also notice my Bluetooth headset break up if I’m near the microwave while it’s running.

Isn&#x27;t it lovely how we&#x27;re inundating our homes with radiation at wavelengths that can cook meat? It&#x27;s as if we _want_ the robot revolution to succeed.