17-Year-Old Radio Astronomy Mystery Traced Back To Kitchen Microwave

New submitter Bo'Bob'O writes: The BBC reports that the scientists at the Parkes and Bleien Radio Observatories in New South Wales, Australia, have tracked down earth-based signals that had been eluding observation for 17 years. These signals, which came to be called Perytons "occurred only during office hours and predominantly on weekdays." The source, as it turned out, was located right inside the antenna's tower where impatient scientists had been opening the kitchen microwave door before its cycle had finished. As the linked paper concludes, this, and a worn magnetron caused a condition that allowed the microwaves to emit a burst of frequencies not expected by the scientists, only compounding the original mystery.

Comments

Brand?

[nospam007]

I'd like to know which brand of microwave lasts 17 years?

Re:Brand?

[dosius]

I got a 28-year-old GE nuker.

Re:Brand?

[jones_supa]

I have a Sharp R-5000E which has been trucking for couple of decades.

Re:Brand?

[ArchieBunker]

My parents still have their original microwave from around 1985. They had to replace the light bulb once so far. Mine is a $50 KMart special that is still working 10 years later.

Re:Brand?

[fruity_pebbles]

My GE microwave is 23 years old.

Re:Brand?

[JMJimmy]

I'd like to know which brand of microwave lasts 17 years?

I'm using a 25 year old Panasonic. Before that my parents had a 34 year old microwave. Basic microwaves are so simple it's rare that they fail. The new inverter ones breakdown easily though (parents are on their 3rd one in 10 years)

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Kenmore built-in microwave that's been working flawlessly since about March of 1994. Used every day, still works perfectly.

Re:Brand?

[David_Hart]

I'd like to know which brand of microwave lasts 17 years?

I'm using a 25 year old Panasonic. Before that my parents had a 34 year old microwave. Basic microwaves are so simple it's rare that they fail. The new inverter ones breakdown easily though (parents are on their 3rd one in 10 years)

I have a 15 year old Panasonic. I even went looking for something to replace it a while back, wanting a stainless steel one instead of white but, based on the reviews, most models today seem to be built to last only 3 years.

Re:Brand?

[Defenestrar]

In college I lived with a few guys who had one (brand unknown - nameplate had fallen off) built when faux wood and analog control dials were the thing of the future. It still worked just fine - whether or not the door was open.

Re:Brand?

[Jason Levine]

most models today seem to be built to last only 3 years.

This isn't just the case for Microwaves. Refrigerators, washing machines, and many other big appliances seem to be built with a 10 year maximum lifespan. Somewhere along the way, the manufacturers figured out just how long a device should work so that users won't think of them as defective (breaking in the first year = bad) but not lasting so long that they miss out on people buying new devices to replace the older ones. If your washing machine lasts 30 years, you'll likely only buy two in your lifetime. If they last 10 years, you'll likely buy 6 or 7 which means more profits for the manufacturers making shorter lived appliances.

Re:Brand?

[amorsen]

If you have a 10 year old washing machine, the likelihood is that a new one will pay itself back in energy + water savings in a few years. The efficiency improvements in white goods over the last decade have been astounding.

Re:Brand?

[Gibgezr]

Almost all of them?
Microwaves are like Volvos: they keep working long past the point where you decide you need a new one.

Re:Brand?

[alen]

whatever my mother in law has and whatever doesn't come out of walmart

Re:Brand?

[alen]

10 years is about the average time people stay in a home until moving and when people buy a new home they like to buy their own stuff for it

win win

Re: Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

You damn kids and your microwaves. My old miniwave does just fine. You don't appreciate what we did for you. Next you'll be buying nanowaves and complaining they don't work very well. It'll serve you right.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

calculated it - no it does not unless you wash each sock separately. The calculation is different for the fridge tho but it works 24x365 so there you really save some energy and thus money every day.

Re:Brand?

[Aighearach]

Remember to include the manufacturing energy consumed to replace it every 10 years. It is not obvious that the small efficiency increases outweigh the difference in lifespan. A belief one way or the other needs to be based on numbers, or else "efficiency" isn't being understood.

Also remember that the efficiency numbers published on the device label is just a benchmark. It doesn't compare actual loads. For example, newer machines tend to waste less power when you do really small loads. That really, really helps them in the benchmarks, because the benchmarks don't usually have full loads. So if your computer watches the energy consumed, you can waste less power in that case fairly easily. But people who only do full loads won't get any increased efficiency there. It really is just reducing the waste in some cases, not increasing efficiency across the board.

Assuming you use a washer or dryer in an efficient way, with full loads, almost all of the energy is used by the motor to do real work. Unless you're using a whole new class of motor, you're not going to see large increases in efficiency. And it is illogical to be credulous of such claims.

Measure what the old appliances use before you replace them. Then measure what the new ones use. Then you can measure what the savings are, if any. Don't just read what the label says, and decide you're "saving" money, or being more energy efficient.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years is about the average time people stay in a home until moving and when people buy a new home they like to buy their own stuff for it

win win

Taking your appliances with is just yet another thing to pay someone to haul for you. Usually they're left behind and included in the price of the home, when I bought my house the kitchen had every major appliance except the microwave still in it. The washer and dryer they had taken with them (maybe they were fairly new and really nice, who knows.)

Re:Brand?

[morgauxo]

I have a 30 year old Panasonic and a 29 year old that I don't remember the brand name. They both get lots of use and still work great!

Re:Brand?

[magarity]

I know someone who beats all the rest of you: my mother's bff still uses her Amana Radarange she got in 1969.

Re:Brand?

[Technician]

What amazes me most is the failure to notice the modulation frequency and ti's phase lock to local power.

Non inverter (all older) micrwaves use a 1/2 wave voltage doubler so the magnitron is only on for 1/2 the AC cycle. Google Microwave oven power supply to see a typical schematic.

For unexpected frequencies, a non linerate in RF from arcing in the door seal can cause odd order harmonics. EG splattered food on the door seal area.

Re:Brand?

[edawstwin]

My grandparents bought a GE in 1979 when they moved into a new house. The microwave still runs fine; the grandparents, not so much.

Re:Brand?

[Jaime2]

I'm surprised they lasted that long, but for a specific reason: what they were doing typically breaks microwave ovens. There is a switch that turns the magnetron off when the door is open, but if it opens while there is current flowing, it creates an arc. This arc causes a lot more wear than if the switch had opened with no current flowing.

Re:Brand?

[sconeu]

There's a Sharp in my kitchen -- a vent hood model -- that was in there and old when I bought the house in 1999. By my count that's a minimum of 16, and given that it was old even then, probably much more.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

What? There's already a switching device in there capable of breaking the magnetron's operating current. Why would the door switch do anything but signal that device to turn off?.

Re:Brand?

[HornWumpus]

Are you implying that anybody who owned a Volvo would buy another?

It does take all kinds. I don't understand why they would buy the first one. Perhaps a Tercel is too fast.

Re:Brand?

[HornWumpus]

Only two more payments and it's all hers.

Re:Brand?

[SuricouRaven]

Household here has gotten through many microwaves over the years. Not one from electrical fault. It's always the body that goes - paint cracks, steam gets in, steel corrodes. Blisters and rust.

There's just not much to go wrong in one. There are only two moving parts: The cooling fan, and the motor that spins the turntable. Both of which are done using brushless motors. The actual microwave stuff is a transformer, capacitor, diode and old-fashioned vacuum tube coupled to a waveguide.

Re:Brand?

[hey!]

You mean like one of these>?

Re:Brand?

[blue9steel]

Perhaps. Clothes dryers not so much.

Re:Brand?

[gfxguy]

Ditto - I got a small-ish GE (with turn table and everything) around 1988, and only replaced it a few years ago with a larger, newer version because my now wife was whining about it. It was still running just fine.

Re:Brand?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'd like to know which brand of microwave lasts 17 years?

*.*

Re:Brand?

[tlhIngan]

I'm surprised they lasted that long, but for a specific reason: what they were doing typically breaks microwave ovens. There is a switch that turns the magnetron off when the door is open, but if it opens while there is current flowing, it creates an arc. This arc causes a lot more wear than if the switch had opened with no current flowing.

Actually, I believe most safety switches don't cut out the power supply to the magnetron - they instead either signal the microprocessor to shut down the power supply or they merely bring a power inhibit signal to the power supply. This way the safety switch isn't carrying dangerous currents, and the processor has to shut down the power supply. usually it's just a solid-state relay where you deassert the signal and it'll stop at the zero-crossing.

Re:Brand?

[hey!]

I'd like to know which brand of microwave lasts 17 years?

Any brand, so long as it was made more than 25 years ago or so.

My kids like to watch vintage TV shows, and in one sitcom from the early 80s there was a plot line involving a TV remote -- this was back when remotes were still an expensive novelty. I paused and pointed out the thing in question. It was huge blocky moster of metal and wood, and looked like it had been forged by Durin in the deeps of Mount Gundabad. While virtually everything they use is incomparably more sophisticated than that thing, nothing approaches the build quality; physically it's all injection-molded crap that's been designed to be discarded after two or three years and replaced.

We can thank Bill Clinton and his China trade deals for amazingly cheap consumer goods that are designed to fail after a couple of years and be impossible to repair.

Re:Brand?

[Jaime2]

Because the most reliable way to make sure the magnetron is off is to remove it's power supply. The door switch is a safety feature, so it has to be as reliable as possible.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a 10 year old washing machine, the likelihood is that a new one will pay itself back in energy + water savings in a few years. The efficiency improvements in white goods over the last decade have been astounding.

The tradeoff is that you have to run it 12 times in order to get a shirt clean in the new "high efficiency" washing machines. Similarly with "high efficiency" dishwashers. They are so efficient, you would never know you put your dishes in a dishwasher for 2 hours! Far too efficient to do anything like... say... remove a blob of ketchup. If you want clean dishes all you have to do is wash them with soap, by hand, in a sink, and THEN pop them into the dishwasher! Future 2.0!

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

... lasts 17 years ...

My Toshiba mechanical microwave lasted 23 years.

Re:Brand?

[peragrin]

Not sure of the brand but my mother's microwave was bought in 89. Still works just fine. So that is 26 years. Massive beast too.

Re:Brand?

[Whiteox]

AHA! I recently replaced my old dryer with one that shuts off when it considers the clothes dry enough. It also has an 'off' switch and an interior light. It is so efficient that I don't even think about it as being a power hog.

Re:Brand?

[SydShamino]

For a more reliable product, the door's interlock would first signal the microprocessor to shut things down normally, but then manually cut power if the processor doesn't respond. For similar behavior on high voltage products (for example), the hardware has like 60 ms or so to become safe after the interlock opens. For a product I worked on recently, we budgeted around 1/3rd of that for the standard digital system to operate and bring things down cleanly, and only if it didn't would the analog circuit kick in and pull the rail down hard. (The analog circuit could damage the board by discharging capacitors too fast, but if digital is dead that's what we had to do to protect the users.)

Re:Brand?

[jythie]

Consumer expectations have also changed, with people more reluctant to invest in quality equipment and more likely to buy larger amounts of cheaper products.

Re:Brand?

[Whiteox]

You're right. I only realized how good the appliances were when I house sat for a month. All she said to the salesperson was "I just want quality. I don't ever want to buy it again." Good sales staff know their products, know about return data/model and respect warranty issues.

Re:Brand?

[Whiteox]

Does the bff glow in the dark?

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same problem with my wife, only she complained about the size of my... house.

So yeah, I guess I'm moving soon.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt the cheap relay on the timer board is more reliable than the door switch, usually the door has one security switch that cuts power to the transformer and another one connected to the electronics that stops the timer, turns off the magnetron/spinning plate relay and turns on the light relay.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

What amazes me most is the failure to notice the modulation frequency and ti's phase lock to local power.

You are easily amazed. Just sayin'.

Re:Brand?

[marciot]

I'd like to know which brand of microwave lasts 17 years?

Maybe it’s one of the originals made by Raytheon.

Re:Brand?

[Paradise Pete]

It was huge blocky moster of metal and wood

Some early remotes had several tuning forks inside. Pressing down a button would "flick" one of them. It sounds (heh) like that's what you were seeing. A side effect was that occasionally something else in the house would create vibrations on one of the frequencies, messing with the TV.

Re:Brand?

[Mal-2]

Of all the Cheap Chinese Crap I've had to deal with, remote controls have probably been the least troublesome. They generally live as long as the devices they control, and who knows what's left in them after that?

Now if only the Rii Touch keyboard had been as reliable...

Re:Brand?

[fisted]

No magnetron?

Re:Brand?

[EvilSS]

If you have a 10 year old washing machine, the likelihood is that a new one will pay itself back in energy + water savings in a few years. The efficiency improvements in white goods over the last decade have been astounding.

Depends. In 2005 HE front loaders were all the rage. My 2006 washer & dryer are still up to snuff when compared to the efficiency of most of the stuff on the market today. They have also almost worked flawlessly for the 9 years I've owned them. Had to replace a thermostat on the dryer a few years back but still, $20 in maintenance over 9 years isn't bad.

Looking at the latest from the same manufacturer at the same size/feature/pricepoint it would actually use a tiny bit less water and more power per cycle than my current washer. Dryer is almost the same power use (off by a few watts). So it would actually cost me money to get something new.

It's funny, when you reach a certain age your concept of things like "last decade" gets subconsciously stuck on a certain time period. For me it's the 90's. I have to remind myself sometimes that it's the 2010's and not the 2000's anymore. Just one of those things that's not in the manual :)

Re:Brand?

[Dynedain]

Yep - I brought one like that to college. It was my great-grandparents' and the manufacturing stamp made it 7 years older than I was. It didn't even say "microwave" - it was labeled as a "radar range".

Sadly, digital ones I've had to buy since it died have lasted 3-4 years tops.

Re:Brand?

[Dynedain]

The fridge that came with my condo died last year, my guess based on the design and model number is that it was built sometime around Y2K and was relatively high-end at the time. It even was energy star rated.

My new fridge is bigger and was definitely not the most efficient model on the showroom floor. My electricity bill averages has been at least $30 less each month compared to the previous year. I thought it a fluke the first month because we had been traveling, but it has repeated over and over.

At this rate, the electricity savings alone will pay off the new fridge in 6 years.

Re:Brand?

[Aereus]

I'm the opposite. I always would rather pay more for a quality product, than deal with buying it twice and usually having less overall satisfaction the entire time. It's actually cheaper in the long run.

Re:Brand?

[adolf]

Remember to include the manufacturing energy consumed to replace it every 10 years.

Why do people keep talking about the energy used in manufacturing as if it is a separate thing? That energy is already built into the purchase price of the item, from the energy consumed by the machines digging the ore to the truck delivering the finished product to your doorstep, and including all of the energy which in turn was used to produce those machines.

It doesn't need to be factored separately. It's already a part of the equation.

That said, the primary energy savings in a new-fangled front-load washer/drier combo seems to be in having a better/faster spin cycle: The less-wet that the clothes are after they exit the washer, the less heat energy the drier needs to use to finish the job of producing dry clothes.

(And none of this beats a washer (any semi-modern automatic washer) and an outdoor clothesline, weather-permitting.)

Re:Brand?

[adolf]

I had a fancy-ish Panasonic for about 13 years, including a variable-speed magnetron (which is a hell of a neat trick). I recently gave it to a friend when the SO downsized it; I expect it to live at least another 4 years of regular use.

It was neither particularly cheap, nor alarmingly expensive when I bought it. Other than some of the superficial silkscreening being being rubbed off from cleaning, it looks and performs like new with zero maintenance over the years.

Aren't they all like this? I don't think I've ever seen a microwave oven retired simply because it suddenly stopped working.

My grandparents' 1975-ish Amana RadarRange was still working fine when she died a couple of years ago.

Re: Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why you're often better off buying secondhand for microwaves and similar whitegoods. Basically your options are:

1. new, therefore designed to last 10 years absolute max if you're lucky. Often more like 3 years.
2. old, therefore cheap, and at worst with similar life expectancy to new model, but with the possibility that you hit the jackpot and get a model that predates aggressive built-in obscellescence.

Added bonus on option 2 if you're comfortable with basic electronic repair is that older usually means more readily serviced (aka bigger components, more clearly marked, with fewer unobtainium modules).

Re: Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

A magnetron is a (type of) old fashioned vacuum tube.

Originally designed for radar back in ye olden times, then re-purposed when some guy melted a chocolate bar in his pocket by mistake and thought "hang on, that's kinda cool" (rather than the more obvious "ow my balls", which some would argue would have been a more rational response given proximity to said chocolate).

Re:Brand?

[I'm New Around Here]

Of course, the door latch was replaced twice, the magnetron three times, and the controls once. When you open it, the light doesn't work, and there's a slight whiff of wet cat from when her precious angel of a child was going through his rebellious teenage years. Also, when it starts, the lights dim in the living room and the fridge starts to buzz. But it still works!

Re:Brand?

[mirix]

Yeah, Zenith pioneered this. "Space Command". Pretty limited, obviously, but functional.

Re: Brand?

[WindBourne]

My parents still have our Litton that we bought back in 1972. It just keeps working.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the rub. You can't invest in quality equipment for many things. Instead, paying more gets you a "better" brand name, more flashy crap to break, or higher efficiency.

Try to pay more than rock bottom for the type of appliance that, if it were built properly, would last a long time. You won't be able to. Heck, it's hard to even find a stove/washer/dryer with dials and no microprocessor. I don't even think you can still buy a mechanical dishwasher. When you do, it will be the cheapest one in the store.

The appliance market is so fucked up that I'm worried when I have to replace something. I really don't want to cheapest POS out there, because it's made to a price. But I also know if I spend more, I'll get worthless features I don't give a crap about. So, instead, I just keep repairing everything.

Re: Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience is that marriage is all about bait and switch.

Pre marriage: sure, I love your car/house/fashion sense/appliances.
Post marriage: we need a more sensible car/bigger house/new clothes/shiny new short-lived appliances that match the decor.

Then wonders why we have no savings left for holidays or eating out.

Who me, bitter?

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

and yet my clothes dryer is 100 percent efficient as it's a linear solar dryer commonly known as a god damn clothes line. Means I don't give a fuck how wet the clothes are when hung up to dry and it even works when the power is out - just takes a bit longer during the winter since they tend to freeze dry then

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> It's funny, when you reach a certain age your concept of things like "last decade" gets subconsciously stuck on a certain time period. For me it's the 90's.

I'm in my mid 30s and I find myself thinking that the 90s "were just a few years ago" two or three times a week. Seems like the millennium just started.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're overthinking this. Older microwaves don't have microprocessors.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a Tercel is too fast.

Okay, let's be fair. The Tercel is not a car. It's a street legal go-kart.

At least, that's how we used to treat them...

Re:Brand?

[amorsen]

Clothes dryers made an enormous jump when they switched to condensing operation. After that, the improvements have been smaller. It is quite likely that a 10 year old dryer is non-condensing, and so the gains are huge.

Re:Brand?

[amorsen]

The washer and dryer primarily spend their energy on heating, not on running the motor. Using less water means savings on electricity because there is less water to heat. Dryers jump dramatically in efficiency when you switch to a condensing dryer, since you save most of the heat that went into turning water into steam.

Re:Brand?

[antdude]

Yesterday, one/1 of my neighbors was throwing theirs out and its paper said "still works". Heh!

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdotelly I suspect the whole drier-obsession is largely a US thing. I own a drier, but it only gets used rarely - usually when I've run out of clean options for clothing item x and only realise at the last minute.

Electricity is expensive, and hanging clothes up really isn't all that hard.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bosch, Siemens, Panasonic and Sharp are all likely to last at least that long.

Re:Brand?

[delt0r]

I use body heat to dry my clothes.

Re:Brand?

[delt0r]

Cold wash. It is really common in NZ. But not here in the EU. Also most washers here don't have a hot water input, it has its own electrical heater. The worst way to heat water.

Re:Brand?

[Brulath]

The US has a lot of places with homeowners associations that prohibit clothes lines, apparently, as they find them unsightly, so dryers are the only option I suppose. Sounds a bit like the Australian politicians who don't want wind turbines because they'd be able to see them from their properties. Bit silly, but hard to avoid.

Re:Brand?

[houghi]

Using a washer and air drying. I tried a drier once and I do not see any added value in using one. All I ever heard from people was what Markting had told them. Basicaly a lot of hot air. (See what I did there?)

It reminds me of buying bottled water when your tap water is perfectly healthy to drink and in all but the exceptional cases. That means if you use icecubes, you can drink it and you do not need to buy bottled water.

(This will be used as an excuse for marketeers to sell you icecubes in a box from Peruvian waterfalls for the low price of 7.88USD per 100cubes)

Re:Brand?

[Dog-Cow]

In Israel, it's rare to have an always-on water heater. The typical setup is a solar-powered heater which can be augmented with line power if you need hot water on cloudy days, or while it's dark (such as for an early morning shower). Given such a setup, having the washer heat the water itself is the only realistic option, and is probably more efficient than heating a multi-gallon (I don't know the average tank volume) tank for an hour before doing the wash.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in one of those. Even if we were allowed too I probably wouldn't bother as I value my own energy over my electric power. My W/D are upstairs so it just sounds like a real pain. My electric bill only runs about $25 (when I'm not using A/C - about half the year).

I do take the heavy items (jeans, towels, blankets) and anything that might get wrinkled badly (basically any shirt) out before they are fully dry though and hang them in the bathroom to finish drying. (I'm not about to do any ironing and that gets them wrinkle free enough)).

I also don't wash those jeans, towels or blankets every time I wear or use them (unless they're obviously dirty) and only do wash with a full load.

Another benefit of a dryer is cats love to jump onto a pile of warm clothes after their done.

Re:Brand?

[tehcyder]

Anecdotelly I suspect the whole drier-obsession is largely a US thing. I own a drier, but it only gets used rarely - usually when I've run out of clean options for clothing item x and only realise at the last minute.

Electricity is expensive, and hanging clothes up really isn't all that hard.

It all depends where you live. if you're in a hot, dry climate, then I agree. Here in the UK, unless it's a clear summer's day, hanging stuff up outside just doesn't work a lot of the time.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's cheaper to take your W/D with you than to repurchase them. Kitchen appliances often seem to just come with most homes I looked at.

Every home or apartment I've lived in in the last 15 years came with a microwave. Mine is 20 years old and cost about $75 new. It still works, but the LED display is dead when I tried it out recently - be careful you program it right.

Nonetheless that old microwave was nicer than the microwaves in some of the apartments so it was used some of that time.

Re:Brand?

[tehcyder]

I recently replaced my old dryer with one that shuts off when it considers the clothes dry enough.

And we all know what happens next... "The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."

Re: Brand?

[tehcyder]

A magnetron is a (type of) old fashioned vacuum tube.

Originally designed for radar back in ye olden times, then re-purposed when some guy melted a chocolate bar in his pocket by mistake and thought "hang on, that's kinda cool" (rather than the more obvious "ow my balls", which some would argue would have been a more rational response given proximity to said chocolate).

I'm sure I heard a story that it was James Lovelock (the Gaia guy), but according to Wikipedia at least it's someone called Percy Spencer. At least, he was the first to patent it.

Re:Brand?

[tehcyder]

You're right. I only realized how good the appliances were when I house sat for a month. All she said to the salesperson was "I just want quality. I don't ever want to buy it again." Good sales staff know their products, know about return data/model and respect warranty issues.

They also know how to milk a customer with more money than sense.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

the door's interlock would first signal the microprocessor to shut things down normally, but then manually cut power if the processor doesn't respond.

That doesn't sound like very good interlock design. On high power equipment, both that I've purchased and designed, safety systems are almost all independent. There is no conditional waiting, everything just shuts off when an interlock is pulled. Dump circuits are designed so they can't pull a dangerous amount of current and can handle even the case where the power supply doesn't shut off properly. It isn't hard to incorporate small delays into dump and shutdown circuits to help protect equipment that can't just be killed at the same time, but they will trigger regardless of what the other systems do.

That said, microwaves are pretty simple devices, you just pull the power before it goes into the step up transformer, and the cap on the high voltage side discharges quickly. You can look inside such a microwave yourself. The newer ones have an switching power supply that just stops switching, and the older ones just have are relay. There is no difference between shutting things down "normally" and just pulling the power.

Re:Brand?

[delt0r]

I was assuming something like gas or central heating for alternate hot water supply. Clearly a electric hot water cylinder is no different from just heating in the washing machine.

Re:Brand?

[adolf]

I have a stout outdoor clothesline. It doesn't work in the wintertime, or any of early spring or late fall. It also doesn't work in the rain.

I don't hang clothes to dry in the house in the wintertime, for the same reason I don't route my (electric) drier's exhaust into the house: All that water wants to condense on a cold surface (of which there are plenty) turn that surface into a happy little mold farm. The same thing happens during the humid summer, except the mold is actually on the clothes instead of hidden in a cool corner somewhere.

Also: Evaporation of water is always an endothermic process, which is also to say that it's never free-of-cost to dry clothes inside of a heated dwelling.

But hey, don't let truth get in the way of a good and senseless argument about a someone's misplaced sense of frugality!

Re:Brand?

[jythie]

There will probably always be some consumers who balance things this way, but they tend to be too small of a group for the most mass of mass markets. They also tend to be middle to upper middle class (thus have more disposable income) so that alone makes a smaller percentage to start with.

The places where you see this segment still hold sway tend to be smaller, more 'lifestyle' type markets. For instance, sewing machines. As a hobby it is something generally only people with decent amounts of disposable income engage in, and within that the number of people who do more than make drapes is even more niche. Consequently there is still a thriving demand for purely mechanical 'will survive a bomb blast' sewing machines in addition to the more common electronic and computerized offerings. But you pay a premium AND get less functionality.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another benefit of a dryer is cats love to jump onto a pile of warm clothes after their[they're] done.

In what way is getting hair from a filthy animal on your freshly cleaned clothes a benefit? Pet owners are bonkers.

Re:Brand?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a Panasonic 13 years ago and it is still working fine. However it is now with the ex-wife. My current Sharp is 4 years old - so far so good.

Re:Brand?

[oldmac31310]

Indeed. I remember the mad dash to take in the washing when the rain started (did it ever stop?) when I lived in Ireland.

Re:Brand?

[oldmac31310]

If I have my microwave and toaster oven on at the same time it trips the circuit breaker and plunges half of my apartment into darkness. Same thing in my previous apartment. Poorly wired.

Re:Brand?

[Agripa]

That worked well when I replaced my refrigerator but failed miserably for my dish washer. It is not even energy efficient cleaning already cleaned dishes.

Re:Brand?

[Agripa]

The door interlock opens the primary side of the step-up power transformer. If this happens quickly enough, then there will not be significant modulation from the power line frequency. On one of my microwave ovens, the primary side interlock opens before the seal on the door separates.

Re:Brand?

[Agripa]

I inherited a GE dorm room microwave from a friend who gave it to me when it was getting weak. I had it in storage for a couple years before deciding that I needed it and all it required was a replacement ballast capacitor. It is at least 25 years old now and going strong.

Science gets Smarter

[alphatel]

Now the climate deniers are going to pounce on us all. What's next, a Tachyon Field Generator inside the Large Hadron Collider?

Re:Science gets Smarter

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Some slashdotters act like "scientists" are some form of noble creature above human failings. The fact is that ANYONE can call themselves a scientists, and spending an extra four years in school doesn't make you infallible. In fact it may make you more intractable.

Re:Science gets Smarter

[TWX]

It's my observation that many who become masters of one field are usually below average in several others. I've even known people with PhD degrees in work that requires a field component (paleo, anthro, geo, archeo) that have trouble actually operating in the field, like maintaining a safe distance driving off-road and not ditching the truck.

The best practice is to assume that they're experts in only their field, and to simply not judge in others. Though in this instance, you'd think that since they work with equipment that receives microwaves, and they're using a consumer appliance that emits microwaves that's even called a microwave, that they'd have figured that putting a microwave appliance in any proximity to the microwave receiver would be a bad idea.

Re:Science gets Smarter

[rogoshen1]

well it's basically the better versed someone is in a specific domain, they get hit with the double whammy of getting out of practice in everything else, while maintaining the delusion that they are masters in anything they attempt.

Linus Pauling later in his career is a /fantastic/ example of this.

Re:Science gets Smarter

[Anonymous Coward]

Some slashdotters act like "scientists" are some form of noble creature above human failings

Those types must be in the small minority then, compared to all of those that, without RTFA or reading any detailed article on the topic and past research, can conclude in five minutes what all the scientists in the field forgot to do for the last couple decades. The noble creatures above human failings around here seem to be posters that are so sure they are right they've disproven the latest paper via a bunch of blind assumptions.

Re:Science gets Smarter

[Anonymous Coward]

My son is utterly clear on the fact that he can't hammer a nail in a block of wood. He's just about completed his PhD in medicinal chemistry.

Re: Science gets Smarter

[Anonymous Coward]

He's wrong about his audio claims though. Takes a scammer to know one I guess..or he's got the same issue the scientists had.

Re:Science gets Smarter

[dbIII]

that requires a field component (paleo, anthro, geo, archeo) that have trouble actually operating in the field

News just in - people doing something they haven't done much of before are crap at it. Who would have guessed?

However the article is crap anyway because the microwave at Parkes story has been an amusing anecdote circulating around for well over a decade and I think I've even read it on this site. The radio version I heard about fifteen years ago had the source being detected on the third night - but it was structured like a joke so reality may have even been the first signal.

Re:Science gets Smarter

[Anonymous Coward]

One place I worked, a hard-core semiconductor physicist used a microwave to try off some backup tapes after the a/c dribbled water on them.

NEW SOUTH WALES, you insensitive clod!

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

Thar she blows! Typo off the starboard bow! Give it the trusty nitpick, er, harpoon...

Re:NEW SOUTH WALES, you insensitive clod!

[OhSoLaMeow]

Thar she blows! Typo off the starboard bow! Give it the trusty nitpick, er, harpoon...

Close. It should be "Nuke the Whales"

Re:NEW SOUTH WALES, you insensitive clod!

[OzPeter]

Thar she blows! Typo off the starboard bow! Give it the trusty nitpick, er, harpoon...

Close. It should be "Nuke the Whales"

Keep up please, now days it is Nuke the unborn gay whales

Re:NEW SOUTH WALES, you insensitive clod!

[Chris Mattern]

Shows what you know! Those are the fresh Confederate cetacean recruits!

Re:NEW SOUTH WALES, you insensitive clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

A baby seal walks into a club . . .

Re:NEW SOUTH WALES, you insensitive clod!

[HornWumpus]

Nuke a gay unborn baby whale with AIDs for Jesus!

Re:NEW SOUTH WALES, you insensitive clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are out of date, it's now "Nuke the unborn gay whales FOR JESUS!"

Re:NEW SOUTH WALES, you insensitive clod!

[Bo'Bob'O]

Well, I suppose this is what happens when a dyslexic tries to make a submission! I thought it would be a little better then just vaguely saying 'Australia' like the BBC article. So much for that.

I probably should have just left the rubbish BBC article out all together anyway, but I didn't want to melt some poor institution's servers when most people probably wouldn't have read more then the introduction anyway. Live and learn.

impatient scientists?

[fustakrakich]

No such thing! They're all monks who barely speak above a soft whisper.

Defective

[fizzer06]

There is a required interlock on the oven door. The power is broken when the door is opened.

Re:Defective

[psyclone]

Power is killed, but the magnetron keeps spinning and some microwaves can escape. Best to hit the stop button and wait a second before opening the door.

Re:Defective

[msauve]

...and it takes a finite amount of time for the capacitors to discharge and the transformer fields to collapse.

Re:Defective

[pla]

An 8ms (falling phase of the 60hz power cycle) broad-spectrum burst of microwaves from a tired old oven won't cause even the slightest bit of damage to you.

Re:Defective

[OzPeter]

An 8ms (falling phase of the 60hz power cycle) broad-spectrum burst of microwaves from a tired old oven won't cause even the slightest bit of damage to you.

Yeah .. but the microwave burst from that 50Hz power cycle in Australia is really nasty - its just like all the animals that either want to eat you or simply kill you.

Re:Defective

[TWX]

A buddy of mine swore that he saw a guy who'd just had a vasectomy and still had some kind of staples in his body scream in pain when the microwave was operated. I did not witness it, but the buddy was not known for exaggerating.

Re:Defective

[Anonymous Coward]

We get it Mr Selfish, you only worry about damage to you, and not about causing earth-based signals to your local radio observatories.

Re:Defective

[cusco]

Why would they have used staples? A vasectomy requires two or at most three very small stitches on each side. I rather suspect that the patient was pulling his co-workers' leg.

Re:Defective

[Obfuscant]

Power is killed, but the magnetron keeps spinning and some microwaves can escape.

Magnetrons don't spin. The electrons in a magnetron spin (all electrons have spin) and they circulate in a cylindrical chamber. The magnetron itself doesn't move and it has no moving parts to "keep spinning".

The frequency is determined for the most part by the physical dimensions of the magnetron (effectively forming an LC circuit), but the frequency will "chirp" as the voltage on the tube changes. That's the source of the "FRB" (fast radio burst) they were seeing.

An interesting comment in the reference is that the cavity looks like the rotating part of a revolver, and was first manufactured by using a revolver die.

Best to hit the stop button and wait a second before opening the door.

The door button on all the microwaves I've used unlatches the door and triggers the interlock, but you still have to pull the door open. If you're so impatient that you can get the door open after hitting the button before the supply voltage to the magnetron drops below operating levels, you maybe ought to eat the raviolis or chili cold out of the can.

Re:Defective

[Obfuscant]

Why would they have used staples?

Easier to undo. From here:

There are various clips that can be used by physicians in performing vasectomies. The use of clips can shorten the procedure time slightly and will leave permanent staple-like devices, smaller than an eraser head, within the scrotum. The clips vary in price from a few dollars for titanium clips to as much as $400 additional cost for plastic VasClips.

Re:Defective

[Tower]

I haven't seen a microwave with a door button in ages. Just pull.

Re:Defective

[SuricouRaven]

The magnetron might not spin, but it does have inertia of a sort. It's driven by a voltage doubler circuit off of a transformer: That means a capacitor and an inductor, both of which store a considerable amount of energy. Cut the power and it will take a few milliseconds before their energy is exhausted.

Re:Defective

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly... And microwaves travel at the speed of light... If someone is so quick that they can open the microwave door faster than the speed of light and thereby allow microwaves to "escape" then I want that fucker on my football team...

Re:Defective

[cusco]

Undo? So they're actually providing for that now? When I had mine (in the last century) that was not even a consideration. A reversal was a $20,000 procedure with a 30+ percent failure rate. This should prevent some heartbreak.

I still think the patient was putting one over on his co-workers, though.

Re:Defective

[Obfuscant]

Undo? So they're actually providing for that now?

Yes. Couples who decide they don't want any more children and she doesn't want to muck with her hormones or get her tubes tied and he doesn't want to wear balloons for the next fifteen years get divorced and remarried and suddenly not being able to have kids becomes an issue for the new wife, for one example.

A reversal was a $20,000 procedure with a 30+ percent failure rate.

Yes, cutting/cauterizing a small tube is pretty easy. Sewing it back up after a few years is not.

I still think the patient was putting one over on his co-workers, though.

I think the fact that anyone knew he was feeling anything in that area means something was being pulled, maybe not the leg.

Re:Defective

[Anonymous Coward]

haha :P

Re:Defective

[Anonymous Coward]

I rather suspect that the patient was pulling his co-workers' leg.

If he was pulling his leg, he was doing it wrong.

15 co-authors

[Flyskippy1]

I'm surprised that the paper (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.02165v1.pdf) required 15 co-authors. It seems like the sort of thing I'd give to an undergrad to write once somebody figured it out...

Re:15 co-authors

[pla]

"So, Dr. Flyskippy1, how many papers did you get published this year? Oh, only eight? Yeah, we need you to move out of the corner office next week to make room for a star postdoc who helped solve a radio astronomy mystery that stumped you tenured geniuses for the past 17 years. No hard feelings, right?"

Re:15 co-authors

[khr]

Maybe that's everybody in their office who's nuked some popcorn to generate the mystery in the first place.

Re:15 co-authors

[Garfong]

I think this is normal for fields like astronomy which involve a large number of scientists sharing a single, very expensive, piece of equipment.

Re:15 co-authors

[Anonymous Coward]

What it means is that 15 people participated in the research to determine the cause of the phenomena, not that 15 people wrote the paper. So it very well could have been written by an undergrad, but 14 other people had worked on determining the cause.

However, it's typical that the principle researcher will also be the primary author of a paper, and not pass off the data to someone with little familiarity and expect them to be able to convey all the knowledge correctly.

Re:15 co-authors

[Obfuscant]

I'm surprised it was written at all. Would YOU want anyone to know that you'd spent 17 years looking out into the galaxy for a signal that only occurred during office hours on weekdays and came from the microwave oven in your own break room? It would be much less embarrassing to just buy a new microwave and let the signals mysteriously disappear. Maybe attribute them to some convenient change in the galactic environment. Or maybe even better to remove sources of microwaves from the vicinity of an operating radio astronomy telescope?

Re:15 co-authors

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, papers where you're not the first or second author aren't really counted as toward a single person's research performance. For the purposes of looking at project performance and adviser performance, it doesn't matter if the adviser or PI's name actually appears on the paper.

Extra authors usually comes down to either courtesy or policy, to acknowledge those that helped contribute to the paper or project.

Re:15 co-authors

[Tablizer]

I'm surprised that the paper required 15 co-authors

They should consider "juicing it up" to make it sound more worthy:

"Using Dr. Foo's bi-directional triangulation method, the source of the mysterious Peryton radiation was eventually pin-pointed after 17 years of difficult and dangerous research among native fauna.

The source turned out to be a cuboid cooking mechanism used by the species, Homo Sapiens. Further research was conducted to understand the pattern of behavior related to the cuboid cooking device.

It was observed that the Homo Sapiens were warned by their pack alpha male not to use the cooking device during certain periods of the planet's rotational cycle. However, a subset of the pack ignored the pack leader and participated in the device ritual.

Oddly, the alpha male didn't bite the others for ignoring his wishes. To better understand why, our team camouflaged ourselves as native fecal matter containment devices, made of an unknown smooth white substance, and sedated a sub-set of the cooking device ritual participants.

We then applied simulated bite marks to the sedated specimens using sharp instruments to see if this changed the relationship between the alpha male and the device ritual participants. The observations of this bite experiment are still ongoing.

However, an interloper male, external to the tribe, which answers to the call "loy-ur", has tried to block access to our observational area. The interloper often waves a white flat rectangular sheet of compressed wood pulp. One researcher was able to temporarily fend off the interloper's attacks by lodging his head into the cuboid cooking device while activated. A follow-up research report will detail our observations of this new interloper.

Re:15 co-authors

[Anonymous Coward]

Publish or perish!

Re:15 co-authors

[Anonymous Coward]

Would YOU want anyone to know that you'd spent 17 years looking out into the galaxy for a signal that only occurred during office hours on weekdays and came from the microwave oven in your own break room?

Yes, I would want everyone to know. The truth is more important than my ego.

Re:15 co-authors

[Anonymous Coward]

1 person to write, 14 taking shifts using the microwave for the test data...

Re:15 co-authors

[tlhIngan]

I'm surprised it was written at all. Would YOU want anyone to know that you'd spent 17 years looking out into the galaxy for a signal that only occurred during office hours on weekdays and came from the microwave oven in your own break room? It would be much less embarrassing to just buy a new microwave and let the signals mysteriously disappear. Maybe attribute them to some convenient change in the galactic environment. Or maybe even better to remove sources of microwaves from the vicinity of an operating radio astronomy telescope?

Well, actually, they knew it was man-made because it triggered all the detectors at once. If it was from outer space, then only the telescopes pointed in the general direction would pick it up. Here, all the telescopes picked up the same event at the same time, which indicates manmade interference.

The problem is it was erratic, it lasted barely a second, and it was completely unpredictable.

Perhaps it happened a touch more often around noon, but that could be any number of things - including solar induced interference. And it only happened when the user opened the door prematurely - if they let it run through the clock, or hit the stop button, nothing would happen.

And perhaps some days it doesn't happen at all.

The problem is the data points were insufficient enough to put on a correlation - and if it happens infrequently enough, well, it's easier to ignore it if it happens twice a week.

In other words, its discovery was probably close to accidental, and only then did they actually go and test the hypothesis out.

Re:15 co-authors

[Obfuscant]

Perhaps it happened a touch more often around noon,

If you read the paper, you'll find the histogram of events. The count for 1200 to 1300 local was 25, and if you combine the "lunch hour" (1100 to 1400) the total is 40. The total events attributed to FRB was 12. "A touch more" is an understatement. The paper makes the comment that they were probably under-detecting the "lunch hour" since that's when the dish was often down for maintenance.

there's also an interesting spike from 0800-0900, which I would guess is people getting to work nuking their first coffee of the day.

The problem is the data points were insufficient enough to put on a correlation -

"We're seeing random microwave bursts from terrestrial sources close to the antenna. Anyone have any ideas?"

"I don't know, I need my first cup of coffee before I can think about complicated stuff. Let me nuke a cuppa and I'll be right back..."

Re:15 co-authors

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is more important than my ego.

"If there's anything more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now."
  -- Zaphod Beeblebrox

Re:15 co-authors

[blackest_k]

once had a system that would go down between 10 and 12. Trouble was NT used a longer time stamp than 98 was a 'y2k upgrade'

Re:15 co-authors

[Anonymous Coward]

Second?

First and last are the most important where I'm from. First did the work, last did idea/funding. All else are filler.

Captcha: Scholar

Re:15 co-authors

[Obfuscant]

It was observed that the Homo Sapiens were warned by their familial matriarch not to open the magic heating device before it had ceased to display magic properties. However, a subset of the pack ignored her and needlessly risked their genetic futures, creating the high probability of either individual sterility or dangerous mutations leading to unwarranted increased sentience or higher levels of rational thought.

FTFY.

Re:15 co-authors

[Megane]

This sort of work is clearly worthy of an Ignobel nomination.

Re:15 co-authors

[Megane]

That works as long as there isn't some asshole who hates the smell of popcorn.

Re:15 co-authors

[dbIII]

The story has circulated for well over a decade (I think I've read it even on Slashdot before), I suspect this is someone quantifying it from the data instead of just ignoring it.

Hmmm ....

[gstoddart]

Somewhere in there is a Farside cartoon waiting to happen.

Re:Hmmm ....

[Critical Facilities]

True. And there's also a writer for The Big Bang Theory saying "I TOLD you something like that could happen!!"

Re:Hmmm ....

[Tablizer]

A professor once told the class he was tasked with finding the source of intermittent "garbage" characters emanating from a data entry work-station. After checking and swapping all the hardware, IT staff couldn't find the cause. So he sat to observe the work-station in action. Turns out the data entry lady had large bosoms that occasionally bumped the keyboard.

Re:Hmmm ....

[wonkey_monkey]

A similar story local to me:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

Re:Hmmm ....

[Anonymous Coward]

How did he notice the keyboard?

Re:Hmmm ....

[Aighearach]

That would be "a large bosom," not "large bosoms." It means the whole front part of the chest, not an individual boob.

Re:Hmmm ....

[Tablizer]

us geeks typically have insufficient exposure to the subject matter to perfect those sorts of details

Re:Hmmm ....

[Nutria]

That wouldn't happen if women stayed in the kitchen where they belong...

Watch The Dish

[Kagato]

One of my favorite films was "The Dish" staring Sam Neil. A slightly fictionalized retelling of how Parkes was used to broadcast the Appollo 11 Moon landings.

Re:Watch The Dish

[Tablizer]

If the kitchen theme holds, they'll find the missing "giant leap" video tapes inside an old freezer.

Re:Watch The Dish

[Ozoner]

In the movie they RECEIVED the video from the moon. They didn't Broadcast it.

Re:Watch The Dish

[dbIII]

They relayed it, so "broadcast" isn't a million miles off the mark.
Reality was far less exciting than the movie but the more mundane stuff was real. One amusing thing is the director wanted an old computer on the set, and the one available from Melbourne turned out to be the PDP-11 that had come from Parkes. How's that for realism?

Yikes, my mom was right

[sideslash]

She always said if we didn't give it an extra second to stop zapping before we opened the door, we'd all die of cancer. I'm going to have to tell her about this for Mother's Day. :)

Re:Yikes, my mom was right

[Aighearach]

Your mom is pretty good, getting the important implications wrong and the unimportant reasons right, that is way above par.

But if she wants to lower your cancer risk, tell her to install radon sensors in the basement.

Dammit... Missed the signal again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I go to lunch. How does it know?

Good Job Brainiacs

[l0ungeb0y]

Now if you could finally come up with a cooking preset to get Hot Pocket and Burritos to cook evenly without an ice-cold center

Re:Good Job Brainiacs

[Lab Rat Jason]

An icy core with a napalm mantle... disguised under an unassuming flaky pastry crust.

Re: Good Job Brainiacs

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the new Icy-Hot pocket. It's a feature, not a bug.

Re:Good Job Brainiacs

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that water absorbs a couple orders of magnitude more microwaves than ice, so there's no real good solution. You just have to wait a while after cooking to let the fiery mantle transfer its heat to the icy core.

dom

Re:Good Job Brainiacs

[Aighearach]

It says right on the packet, "For best results, thaw in refrigerator before cooking."

You just need a combination refrigerator/microwave.

Re:Good Job Brainiacs

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that water absorbs a couple orders of magnitude more microwaves than ice, so there's no real good solution. You just have to wait a while after cooking to let the fiery mantle transfer its heat to the icy core.

dom

Yep, that's why the instructions that you hardly read tell you to let it sit for a couple minutes before eating.

Re:Good Job Brainiacs

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn the power level down and add a couple drops of water.
Better yet stop eating garbage. Not that I care what you eat, but the rest of us in the office don't want to be reminded of that drunken escapade in Tiajuana over the weekend. We come to work to relax, not to observe your dirty mexican survival tacticts. Buy a freakin slim jim!

Re:Good Job Brainiacs

[gstoddart]

Honesty, just don't use max power.

Everybody takes a microwave, sets it to max power, and presses start.

You have 9 other power settings besides "incinerate".

Show some restraint, Grasshopper.

Re:Good Job Brainiacs

[Anonymous Coward]

You have 9 other power settings besides "incinerate".

Yes: tease, tickle, poke, prod, pirouette, flambe, pyrolize, purify, and sublimate. None of which are any better at cooking frozen food.

Re:Good Job Brainiacs

[whodunit]

Obligatory XKCD: http://what-if.xkcd.com/131/

"When instructions say let stand for 1-2 minutes, it's not just to protect your mouth from hot food—it's giving the hot and cold spots time to equalize, so the whole thing will be sufficiently heated throughout. And if some part of the food doesn't conduct heat well (e.g. rice) or contains a lot of chunks of ice (e.g. frozen fruit or meat) they also might tell you to stir midway through cooking. This helps to transfer the heat more evenly into the food, move food away from cold spots, and also break up chunks of ice and mix them with warmer pockets of water to help melt them... It turns out that "turning the microwave off every so often to let the food cool" is exactly what the "power level" setting does! Choosing a lower power level doesn't actually change the strength of the microwaves; it just means that the microwave generator won't be running the whole time... In effect, the microwave is just automating the tedious task of zapping something a bunch of times on "high" for 10 seconds each and letting it sit for a while in between."

After I read this XKCD, I started putting my Schwan's breakfast bagels in at 50% power for twice the recommended time, and the icy center vanished. All those years of raging against the magnetron for our burned mouths and surprise icy centers, and the solution was there the entire time. Is this a cautionary tale to engineers who would mock and shun the liberal arts majors who document their ingenious technical solutions? Or were these features documented all along, in instruction manuals easily tossed aside by generations upon generations of nerds who blithely assumed that they knew all there was to know about the simple and unassuming microwave, only to burn their mouths and vent their wrath upon hapless users by screaming "RTFM!"

When you stare into the hot pocket, the hot pocket stares into you.

Elude observation?

[Obfuscant]

If they eluded observation for 17 years, how did they know they were happening? Perhaps "elude identification"?

And a signal that happens only on weekdays during office hours? They thought there was any chance that these were extraterrestrial in origin? "Searching the galaxy for 17 years.." How did the aliens get our calendar to know when we have weekends? (I know -- they went into the Home Depot and picked up a free one before going out front to find temp work for the day...) That still doesn't explain only during office hours.

The abstract tells a fascinating story all by itself. The signals that they were searching for were 2.3-2.5GHz, but the microwave emits at 1.4GHz. Therefore, the microwave is guilty. And then they needed to make sure that the "fast radio bursts" that these emissions mimicked did actually exist and weren't just another form of "microwave fail".

News for nerds, stuff that matters: microwave ovens emit radio waves when they break. Good to know. "Local radio observatory doesn't enforce their own 'radio quiet zone' to keep from chasing self-created interference, wastes millions of dollars looking for broken microwave oven..."

Re:Elude observation?

[amorsen]

They did not spend millions of dollars looking for the microwave oven, and they knew all along that the signal was man-made. Figuring out precisely which item made it is the kind of thing that gets you in the newspapers, so they did a little PR stunt.

Their usual work changes our understanding of the universe but does not have a chance to make it into the mainstream news. Can you begrudge them their 15 minutes of fame?

Re:Elude observation?

[Aighearach]

If you assume the word "galaxy" implies "aliens," you're going to have a hard time understanding any radio astronomy.

Actually, they weren't searching the galaxy. As the abstract mentions, the (real) FRB 010724 signals are excellent candidates for genuine extra-galactic transients.

Re:Elude observation?

[Obfuscant]

They did not spend millions of dollars looking for the microwave oven,

Time on a radio telescope and the associated equipment (including supercomputer time) is not free. Perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but not excessive considering the venue of my comment.

and they knew all along that the signal was man-made.

I'll yield on that one. The paper says the properties of the signal "suggested" it was in the near field. It was only TFA (BBC) that says:

After 17 years of fruitlessly searching the galaxy,

Figuring out precisely which item made it is the kind of thing that gets you in the newspapers,

Figuring out that a microwave oven generated microwave signals picked up by a microwave antenna at the same building may make the newspapers in Australia, but in advanced countries it wouldn't. OTH, we do have to own the idea that people in the US don't seem to understand that cell phones use radio waves, so nobody is completely innocent. The difference is that these are radio astronomy scientists and the cell-phone ignoramii are mostly Joe Sixpack and his cousin Bubba types.

Can you begrudge them their 15 minutes of fame?

You think someone becomes famous because they discover the obvious? You ought to read the paper. It's a hoot.

First, they used a communications receiver with a directional antenna that made a full circle every 20 minutes and obtained 0.1 sec of data at any given frequency. That they thought this receiver would observe RFI that lasts for 200ms and occurs rarely (three events during Jan-Mar 2015) is, well, not flattering to their experiment design qualifications.

Then they tested three microwaves at three locations by looking for emissions while heating a cup of water for 10 - 60s. Interestingly, they found perytons during this test. What they couldn't figure out is how the microwave they were testing at the time could have gotten a signal to the antenna -- it was blocked. A real puzzler. Then they found out that they had forgotten their control protocol for the experiment. Someone was using one of the other two microwave ovens while they were testing the third. Basic science: if you want to test object A for causality, you don't allow object B to be used at the same time. Corollary 1: if you're just going to come up with reasons why the observations were impossible, why bother making them in the first place?

Long story short: a facility that needs to avoid RFI at microwave frequencies took no precautions to avoid RFI at microwave frequencies and spent a lot of time (where the Beeb comes up with 17 years I can't determine) trying to figure out where the RFI they were seeing came from, and quite a bit of time analyzing what they knew was RFI so they could distinguish what they already knew was RFI from signals they already know are galactic in origin.

Anyone who knows that radio waves aren't magic and that microwave ovens are called microwave ovens because they use microwave radiation is scratching his head wondering why they didn't just get rid of the microwave ovens 17 years ago and not put 17 years worth of scientific research into galactic radio phenomena in jeopardy. The fact that they now have to defend the observations of FRB as real could have been prevented by one simple rule: no sources of RF on site. That they've publicly admitted they didn't take this obvious, basic preventative measure isn't "fame".

Re:Elude observation?

[Obfuscant]

If you assume the word "galaxy" implies "aliens," you're going to have a hard time understanding any radio astronomy.

Whoosh. And I thought the comment about Home Depot would be a dead giveaway that the aliens bit was a joke.

Re:Elude observation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh snap.

Re:Elude observation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, it's Super Blow By Blow Quote Man, the Internet's greatest hero. Not getting to the fucking point since forever, because he just has to show you how precisely right he is and how precisely wrong you are about absolutely everything, one thing at a time, because what else does he have to live for?

Do you sound like Comic Book Guy in real life, or just in my head?

Re:Elude observation?

[Anonymous Coward]

may make the newspapers in Australia, but in advanced countries it wouldn't

I'm curious to know what you actually know about Australia? Does it extend beyond what you learnt on the Simpsons?

Re:Elude observation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck me, you are full of yourself, aren't you. Another sad dweeb that thinks they know everything after reading a report. I'm calling you out as a know nothing individual. Prove me wrong, list just five papers you've published genuine real academic papers.

I'm waiting...

Re:Elude observation?

[Obfuscant]

I'm curious to know what you actually know about Australia? Does it extend beyond what you learnt on the Simpsons?

1) I don't watch the Simpsons. 2) I've been there many times. 3) It's a lovely place and the people are all very nice. 4) According to a friend of mine, they cheat at cricket. And 5) WHOOSH, it was a joke, mate.

Seventeen years?

[cyberchondriac]

I'm surprised it took so long for such learned men (and women) to figure that out. I get elusive, I get intermittent... but still.. 17 freaking years. They already knew it mainly happened during office hours, that should have been a good place to start.

Re:Seventeen years?

[Overzeetop]

Yeah, but it always happened when they were gone...it was like those god damned aliens *waited* until lunch time to pull their stunt, and no matter how fast the scientists rushed to get back - sometimes not even waiting until the food was done - it always happened right before they got back. ;-)

(btw - I naturally didn't rtfa, but if they worked odd shifts from time to time it would have show up occasionally during non-work hours, throwing them off.)

Re:Seventeen years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hindsight is always 20/20

Re:Seventeen years?

[Aighearach]

A lot of people are making wild assumptions just based on the phrasings in the media.

It was known for that long as an Earth-based signal. There is not actually a huge need to explain all of those. There are lots of Earth-based signals a radio telescope picks up. The goal is mostly to identify what the signal looks like, how to detect it, how to subtract or exclude it from the results.

You make it sound almost like you think they spent 17 years looking for this. No. They first observed it 17 years ago. 17 years is just the time period that it was happening. The events investigated for this paper happened in January. They've only actually been studying it in detail in whatever time it took between January and now to write it up into a scientific paper. It appears it took about 2 months to make the discovery. The reason it took "so long" (2 months) is that it only happens when the door is opened to end the cycle.

Reminds me of an old joke

[wcrowe]

Patient: "Doctor, I get a sharp pain in my eye when I drink my tea."

Doctor: "Take the spoon out of the cup."

This is basically the same thing.

Microwave radiation

[phorm]

Enough radiation to be measured on the outside equipment? While I'm sure the equipment is - by necessity - quite sensitive, that still doesn't sound particularly healthy for anyone in front of the microwave when it was opened.

Re:Microwave radiation

[Aighearach]

Enough radiation to be measured on the outside equipment? While I'm sure the equipment is - by necessity - quite sensitive, that still doesn't sound particularly healthy for anyone in front of the microwave when it was opened.

My advice, look up "mircowaves" on wikipedia.

Re:Microwave radiation

[phorm]

'The page "Mircowaves" does not exist. You can ask for it to be created, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.'

So I'm guessing you still meant microwaves, which - in the case of the oven - are emitting radiation sufficient to cook food within a rather short'ish period of time. I suppose there's not enough heat in a short time to cook ones testes but I'd rather not be standing there when the door opens.

Re:Microwave radiation

[Aighearach]

Not everybody has a perfect heat balance in their testes. Considering that this is "radiation" in the same sense that the bright stuff that comes out of an LED is "radiation," heat damage would be the concern. It is true that repeated heat damage is a cancer risk. (see: skin cancer) However, the amount of radiation emitted in this case is far below the amount needed to cause tissue damage. So the only issue involving the testes would be heat regulation. Since we know that all genetic traits are distributed approximately according to a "bell curve," we know that a significant number of people's testes will be slightly cooler than optimum even when their heat maintenance systems are operating nominally. So while I agree that the slight risk of temperature change exists and would usually bring the system away from the optimum, I can also say that there will almost as many cases where it would be bring the system towards the optimum.

You got me on Mircowaves, though. Those are what happens when Cro-Cop does his training routine in a swimming pool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
No, I did indeed mean Microwaves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

Re:Microwave radiation

[phorm]

First time in a long while I've seen intelligent commentary about testes on the internet. I have to admit that it's well written, though the thought of a "bell curve of average testicular temperature" did make me giggle internally a bit. I suppose at some time a group of scientists had to have mapped that out, but I wonder what the sample diversity was.Google actually comes with up an an interesting article regarding the curve of temperature in rat scrotums (wider ranging than humans by quite a lot, but then rats are fairly large in that area) and the thermal receptors therein

NRAO shields its microwave oven

[TheSync]

This article claims that the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, WV, has the "cafeteria's microwave oven is kept in a shielded cage" and "Large chambers designed to absorb radio waves - including a 5,000-square-foot conference room - have been built to make sure that, as Sizemore tells it, "radiation generated in the building stays in the building."

I visited NRAO once and got to drive a diesel '69 Checker cab (no spark plugs).

Re:NRAO shields its microwave oven

[Anonymous Coward]

Even reading the manual of most microwave ovens will reveal a warning about opening the door while the oven is in operation. Newer ones have a multi-stage switching mechanism that turns off the microwaves before even unlatching the door but I wouldn't be caught dead doing that with one from the 80's.

other Parkes and Bleien mysteries solved

[nimbius]

although much progress has been made to detect the faulty kitchen microwave anomaly, we're still working here at parkes and bleien to track down the source of other mysterious goings-on. If anyone can help, we've compiled a small list:
Break Room: haunting aroma of reheated fish curry despite signage clearly posted warning employees not to microwave fish, kevin.
Parking lot: unexplained vehicles parked across multiple lines despite the lines clearly demarkating the area in which we park our cars, and dont leave them strewn across the lot like some B-roll from Mad Max, kevin.
strange noises in the physics lab: popping, clicking, whistling and humming are often registered anomalies in this area as well as the pop culture television movie soundtrack "frozen" being sung in a low, baratone voice while others are clearly trying to work here, just so you know, because grant money doesnt grow on trees kevin and no one wants to "build a snowman" so just keep it to yourself.

See!

[Tablizer]

I told you the Burrito Nebula wasn't real

Obligatory

[ArcadeMan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Dark Mutter

[Tablizer]

The rays, known as "perytons", were emitted when impatient staff opened the microwave door prematurely.

Now, to be renamed "Dufons".

Doh!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Holy shit, every time I go get a hot pocket we get that weird signal!!!"

Sometimes the so called smart people are pretty fucking stupid.

Virtual Quantum Burrito

[Greyfox]

Much like the NASA EM drive, this happens when a virtual quantum burrito is created in the microwave chamber. Not only is thrust always guaranteed in the event that a burrito is in the microwave chamber, but virtual quantum burritos tend to be very loud in the EM spectrum due to quantum entanglement of the burrito particles.

Mmmm... burrito...

Not news

[MPBoulton]

I worked at Jodrell Bank (the largest radio telescope in the UK) for a summer almost 10 years ago, and their on-site kitchen microwave was surrounded by a Faraday cage to prevent the microwave from interferring with signals picked up by the telescope.

To imply that astronomers had no idea that the microwave could be responsible is just a lie, this is a well-known problem that was solved a long time ago.

Re:Not news

[delt0r]

The rooms with all the LNA we had was shielded as well. I wonder what the polices on cell phones are? I imagine they have a lot of side bands that can fcsk with everything.

The article failed to mention

[Anonymous Coward]

what brand of Ramen the scientists favored. Hey I'm all for transparency. Besides the instructions state NOT to nuke the water and ramen together. In Nihongo, though.

In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

New findings indicate that Perytons do not smell like popcorn, as previously thought.

If they're confused....

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're confused, just imagine the aliens listening to it... for 17 friggen years they've been trying to decode that signal!
After all, it was the only hope of finding intelligent life on this planet.

Why did it take 17 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone with any data analysis abilities should have seen it was something local and in the facility by looking at the data time stamps.

Astrophysicists suck at data analysis.

Re:what the fuck is a worn magnetron?

[edawstwin]

http://marvel.wikia.com/Magnet...

AT&T DSL mystery tied to faulty CFL ballast

[whyde]

I had a friend who was bemoaning how his "crappy" AT&T DSL service would flake out every evening at about the same time, and he'd had techs out to replace his DSL modem twice, re-do the wiring to his house, everything! He asked me whether I was happy with TWC (I wasn't), because he was fed up and was going to switch.

We got talking in general. I asked him whether he'd also done any renovating around his house, no matter what type. He admitted that he'd recently replaced all of his exterior house lights with CFL equivalents, and I asked him whether any were on timers, sensors, etc. He admitted that there was an exterior flood light on a light sensor.

I asked him if that sensor turned on that lamp about the same time of day his DSL service flaked out. His expression dropped. He replaced that one light with an incandescent, and the problem went away.

Wrong Wrong Wrong

[stox]

The reason for Linux's success was due to the momentum that BSD/386 had built up. With the AT&T Lawsuit, everyone was looking for an alternative that AT&T could not claim was derivative work. Linux was in the right place, at the right time. They all jumped on, and ran! The rest is history.

Re:Wrong Wrong Wrong

[stox]

I'll go shoot myself now.

Re:Wrong Wrong Wrong

[delt0r]

You still got +3 insightful!

00:17

[vjg]

This subject of this article is exactly why I hate to walk into the kitchen and see 17 seconds on the microwave's timer.

Microwave ovens and mobile networks

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have asked a mobile network engineer what the likely source was. Microwave ovens being a common source of interference for mobile networks. (Don't get me started on illegal repeaters.)

The worst case I recall was a chef in a hotel kitchen who had removed the safety interlock from the door mechanism so he could zap food faster without having to bother with the inconvenience of opening and closing the door twice.

Steins;Gate, or life imitates art

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very similar to the game/anime Steins;Gate, where a microwave oven functions as part of a time machine and only works when its door is open during use. Not only that, but the time machine only works during certain hours for an initially unknown reason, and uses cell phone signals to work.

This has even been on Slashdot before

[dbIII]

This has even been on Slashdot before - probably more than ten years ago. I think I remember hearing about it on the radio (Australia's ABC Radio National Science Show) around fifteen years ago.

The item is an amusing filler dragged up out of the archives.

Re:This has even been on Slashdot before

[Therefore I am]

Older than that perhaps.

Some ~20 years ago we visited the Tidbinbilla tracking station near Canberra, Australia. At that time they had a small snack-bar outside and not too far from the main entrance. Black Cat comes to mind as the name of the snack-bar but it was a long time ago! The snack bar had the usual foods and a customer-use microwave oven for warming them.

Before using the oven I glanced inside, looking particularly at the roof of the oven. I was not at all surprised to see the oven roof was rusted out and had a gaping hole the size of my palm where there should have been a perforated grating as an RF shield. I knew that oven well - We had one exactly like it and it too had also rusted out in the roof and been repaired under warranty.

The absurdity of a largely unshielded 650 watt microwave source operating in close proximity to super sensitive space tracking equipment was not lost on me and as soon as we returned home to Melbourne I telephoned the site and finally spoke to someone technical that realised the gravity of the situation. They never called me back, which was disappointing, but I can guess the Sharp oven hit the garbage pile the same day.

For the benefit of those that seek more detail, the oven was a Sharp model R8320 microwave/convection oven and was a popular model of the period. The cooking cavity was stainless steel except for the roof. Why that was made of mild steel is anyone's guess but it must have cost Sharp a pretty penny to replace those cavities

Perytons are just bursts, this oven could have caused minutes long tracking equipment wipe-outs.
 

radio free zone

[Anonymous Coward]

The Green Bank observatory in West Virginia is in a radio free zone. For the longest time they did not allow cars with spark plugs onto parts of the campus where the dishes were located due to spark noise.

That's what they WANT you to think...

[jpellino]

everyone knows they broadcast the fake moon landing from Parkes, bouncing it off the moon so it would LOOK like it was coming from the moon.

Some of us got it.

[jpellino]

Don't worry.

"Exciting" reporting

[dbIII]

It's far more interesting to write "scientists have been stumped for 17 years" instead of writing "someone has finally put in the time to do some signal analysis on that microwave oven thing at a radio telescope".
I certainly heard the story of the microwave oven showing up on the sensors more than a decade ago and I've passed it on - the popular retelling has it happen over three nights at exactly the same time. I've heard it on radio some years ago and I think it even showed up on Slashdot at one point as a SETI story.

Meanwhile ...

[PPH]

... 17 light-years away, an alien civilization is deciding how best to respond to these microwave 'chirps', obviously generated by some intelligent race.

Boy are they going to be dissapointed when they discover it was a bunch of absent-minded scientists with a worn-out oven. "Keep looking, Qwrgplv. There still might be intelligence out there."

Found an example of this from before

[dbIII]

Here it is from 1995
http://www.spacebanter.com/archive/index.php?t-24091.html

Microwave ovens are detectable at distances of many kilometers by radio telescopes. They are not really a problem for SETI since thier emission is very broadband by our standards. Our detection systems do not see them. However, back in 1995 at the Parkes observatory, we noticed broadband interference on our spectrum displays. Again, I emphsize this was not detected by the search system. The interference seemed to occur most often at breakfast and dinner times. There was a microwave oven on site (since very little radio astronomy is done at those frequencies). We made a cup of tea in the microwave and sure enough, it produced the same pattern of broad interference. So, the broad interference at ~2400 MHz was indeed emission from microwave ovens at distances greater than 5 km. And it was coming in the sidelobes.

It's also an ilustration of how usage of the spectrum has increased in recent years. At Parkes in 95 and Green Bank in 96-98, we were able to observe much of the spectrum that now has to be filtered to protect the receiver.

The recent articles mentioned microwave ovens as an illustration of how widespread radio emitters are in society. Your example of wireless networks is another good one. Although all radio emitting devices have specific frequency assignments, and limits on their out of band emissions, radio telescopeshttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/seti-the-hunt-for-et-1793984.html are very, very sensitive and can often pick up those out of band emissions.

Peter Backus
Project Phoenix

No doubt an errant Microwave can explain GW

[Anonymous Coward]

At least as well as NSF and Al Gore can.