Quote:
Originally Posted by old_tv_nut
I'd bet they WERE intended to be visible in a snack bar as a novelty customer draw. Why would you hide something whose whole benefit was the wow factor of cooking the customer's order instantly? Remember, "Radio" was the high tech buzzword of the time.
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You make a valid point. After all, the machine did have the script "Radio Sandwiches" logo with four lightning bolts, one at each corner, on the front of the unit, so it makes perfect sense that it should have been in full view of customers so they could witness their hot dogs being cooked by the most up-to-date method of the period--using radio waves. The power supply, however, was probably nowhere nearly as attractive, so it was likely hidden away under a counter with a long cable between it and the cooker.
The same reasoning can be applied to microwaves used in convenience food stores and such for quick heating of hot dogs, hamburgers, etc. (The convenient mart in my town has one, and yes, it is in full view of the customers.) Today's microwave ovens, however, are a huge improvement over the Radio Sandwich Machine in that they are much better shielded, use less power from the AC line (my Sharp Carousel microwave draws only 1.5 amps or so at full power) and, last but certainly not least, they cook food faster and much more evenly than the RSM ever could. Burgers and weenies coming out of a modern microwave do look appetizing, whereas with the RSM, it overcooked things more often than not; however, since the latter was the latest thing at the time, customers either did not realize or did not care that their food looked overcooked, burned, etc when it came out of the machine. All they cared about (and I'm sure this made a huge impression on most people, especially kids) was that their order had been cooked very quickly by those then-new things called radio waves.
The other drawback of the RSM was that it did not have a cooking timer to shut off the machine after a preset period of time (at least I did not see such a timer in the unit's eBay photo). This left the decision of how long to leave the food cooking to the discretion of the operator, who had to watch the machine constantly to be sure it wasn't burning the daylights out of the food inside.
BTW, when I saw the long cylinder on top of the Radio Sandwich Machine in the machine's photo, at first I thought it was a huge filter capacitor. I wondered why on earth the filter cap would be on top of the unit, then I read the posts in this thread. It never occurred to me that the cylinder was a chamber into which the food to be cooked was placed.
I just thought of another problem the Radio Sandwich Machine could have caused and likely did cause: radio interference. When this thing was on, it probably radiated RF like no one's business because it wasn't shielded or grounded, in turn because there probably were few or no regulations in the '30s for devices of this kind. If the two fluorescent bulbs used to illuminate the inside of the RSM were not connected, but still glowed during normal use, there must have been RF inside the machine like no one would believe; think of the problems WLW radio in Cincinnati had with its original 500kW transmitter in the '30s, which were many, many times worse than anything the RSM could have radiated. I mention it here because of the tie-in with fluorescent bulbs; in WLW's case, their 500-kW signal was so strong people living near the station's towers had to put their fluorescent tubes in a closet when the tubes weren't being used, as the radio station signal kept them illuminated as long as the station was on the air.
I bet houses for blocks around any store, restaurant, etc. that had an RSM got radio interference like crazy all day long, as every time the machine was turned on it radiated RF in the same manner as would a radio transmitter. The interference would probably be conducted through the power wiring as well as through the air, making it nearly impossible to filter out entirely.
The problem just got worse when TV came along (if there were any Radio Sandwich Machines still in use in the late 1940s or early 1950s, although most of those machines had probably been destroyed or junked by then). The high level of RF from the four tubes in the RSM probably would have generated so much interference as to make any TV picture unwatchable while the machine was on. Interference conducted to radios through the power line would be easily identified, since the hash would likely be heard across the radio dial, obliterating local stations. Extremely strong interference from RSMs located next door (!) to private homes could be identified as well by the fact that it was not only not tunable, but it could be heard as hash at any setting of the volume control.
There was another problem some years later (1950s) that caused radio
and TV interference aplenty: diathermy. Doctors who had diathermy machines in their offices probably got complaints all the time from people living nearby whose TV reception was being ruined by hash on the picture whenever the machine was operating. I remember seeing a photo in an old (circa 1950s) TV repair book years ago of a TV picture with diathermy interference; the interference pattern looked like a jagged wide bar that appeared and disappeared on the screen in time with the machine's operation cycle. The interference was probably most noticeable in fringe or weak-signal areas where unamplified antennas were used (the problem was likely much worse if there was a mast-mounted preamp or a set-top booster in the antenna system, as the amplifier would strengthen not only the TV signal but the diathermy interference as well), or on TVs using indoor antennas in prime reception areas.