The whole point of the magnetron's
success in war was its robustness in the face of catastrophic
mismatches. The PFN might flame out or the thyratron burst, but the
magnetron would survive.

A good thing too, or we would all be eating cold leftovers without
that magic 'radar range'...
Jeez, I still have the original Frigidaire that I bought in the late
60's when I worked for GM - got an employees special deal just in time
for xmas, the first family in our neighborhood to have a radar range,
the neighbors marveled... The kids whipped that puppy day and night...
It has outlived three houses... It has been relegated to my R&D shop
where it happily heats epoxy, paint, putty, and cups of tea with
aplomb... I cannot even begin to guess how many tens of thousands of
times it has been cycled... Dozens of times a day for a quarter
century when the kids were still home...

denny / k8do