microwave oven component Q

General Questions
#1

Is the beam the magnatron emits conical shaped to focus at the center of the microwave or reverse shaped?
In other words, could someone utilize this magnetron to make a intense beam gun?

#2

“If you have to ask, then you shouldn’t mess with such things.” The same rule applies to capacitor banks and tesla coils.

Microwave output fans out. This is good, since it means that unwise experimeters will probably damage THEMSELVES far more than anyone else. Kilowatt microwave output might not kill you, but it easily can give turn your eye lenses white, and give you internal burns.

Hmmm. Years ago dangerous chemicals were easily obtained, so most modern scientists went through a stage as kids where they blew stuff up as a hobby. (Which means that the stupid ones let themselves out of the race early on.) I guess that today the equivalent is to try to make weapons out of microwave ovens. The curious-but-frightened ones with a little luck and with lots of reading and preliminary investigations will survive, while the “brave” fools will fry their eyeballs.

#3
      • If I remember right, masers are lasers that use ammonia excited below the lowest lasing wavelength.
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  • The “maser” plans I have seen online were just a microwave oven maser set into the end of a metal tube waveguide–so they certainly were not masers in any respect, and weren’t even focused. These are advertised as being able to disable electronics, but that’s about it. And true masers have pretty poor dispersion anyway, the dispersion is related to the wavelength, and increases as the wavelength lengthens-so microwaves scatter much more than light straight from any laser does. I have heard it said by people who knew more than me that the easiest way to make a destructive microwave device was to use a large dish antenna to focus an oven’s magnetron output. The dispersion of a true maser is so great that it’s really not worth the effort involved in building one for that purpose (of hoping to destroy things at long ranges).
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#4
  • Okay, duuuhhhh: “The “maser” plans I have seen online were just a microwave oven magnetron set into the end of a metal tube waveguide–so they certainly were not masers in any respect,”…
    Nuts.
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