There was a fellow in Central Ohio in the late 80's that used a
microwave oven as a fast scan TV transmitter on 2.4Ghz. The details
are very hazy in my mind and I don't recall actually seeing his
signal.

He started with a new unit from a discount store. Feedline losses were
a major problem, he eventually put the thing on top of the tower.
Needless to say, experimenting with a tower mounted transmitter can
bring a whole new set of problems. Especially one that heavy.

I don't want to discourage tower mounting though. About the same time
I had a QRP ATV transmitter at 1296mhz at the tower top that worked
well.



On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 20:20:57 -0400, wrote:

On 12 Sep 2005 23:01:40 -0500, wrote:

I recently tore another microwave oven apart for the two really-strong
magnets that are in the tube

(they are fun to stack alternate-polarity on a wooden dowel
so they seem to "float" in the air; kids of all ages just
love to play that that "toy")

(I kept the transformer, diode, capacitor, and misc. microswitches, too),

and as I carried the rather bare chassis out to the garbage-can area,
I wondered if anyone had ever tried built an amplifier in such a chassis
-- maybe even using some of its many interlocks?
No, but the tube runs at a freq real close to ham Slow Scan TV bands.
They retune them and use them as SSTV transmitters.