Radio Sandwich Machine

[Dave A]

I put this here only because of the RF and radio connection. Please move to the sandwich forum if needed. What a bizzare device along with a breathtaking price. And looking at an ARF thread from last summer, the whole thing is odd including the seller raising the price on a monthly basis. The listing;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Radio-sandwi...item43c435b62c

This has been kicked around on ARF with some good insight;

http://antiqueradios.com/forums/view...?f=11&t=226664

I did a Google search of the address on the plate in LA and I got a non-descript strip mall sort of neighborhood that does not look the age;

https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-...ed=0CC0QxB0wAA

Uploading a pic seems to be a problem at the moment so search away. And where do you put the sandwich?

Back then hot dogs and hamburgers were called sandwiches. My parents and a lot of older people around here still call them "Hamburger Sandwiches."

I think the machine itself is on the level. The seller, however, I can't vouch for. They obviously read the ARF thread and copied some of the info. Or, maybe one of the posters is connected to the seller?

I couldn't find any info on that particular machine, or the companies listed. But, I did find info on some other radio hot dog cookers from just after WWII.

Here's a link to an article on a vending machine one: http://books.google.com/books?id=vuE...%20dog&f=false

GE made the machines for the Automatic Canteen Co. according to this article:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cxg...0radio&f=false

I also found another company called Radio Chef trying the same thing. The name of their device just may be the greatest name of all time! It was called the Speedy Weeny: http://books.google.com/books?id=KRo...%20dog&f=false

The device in the ebay ad looks like it's pre-war, probably early 30's. Since others were trying the same concept, I would say this one is legit too. However, the story of the government confiscating them seems a little far fetched and maybe concocted to make it seem more rare.

[Jeffhs]

It's probably a good thing these machines don't exist anymore, except for the one in Washington state on eBay. According to the eBay listing, they used four radio transmitting tubes and must have put out loads of RF when they were on, not unlike kilowatt linear amplifiers such as are used in amateur radio stations. The seller also said that if you were anywhere near one of these things when they were operating, you, as well as the food, were going to be cooked. Hardly seems safe to me.

The machine, IMO, looks ugly as well, not the kind of thing anyone would expect to find in a 1930s kitchen. Also, the external power supply needed to operate these things was probably as big (or perhaps even bigger) than the cooker itself. Not to mention the huge amount of electricity these machines drew from the AC line. In the 1930s, I doubt that many restaurants had high-amperage electric service; those that did, and had a cooker like this, probably had sky-high electric bills every month. I mention high-capacity electric service because I am sure these machines drew an insane amount of power from the line when they were in operation; any eatery with standard (15-ampere) electric service might find itself in flames (or with a blown main fuse if the fuse box itself didn't burn out or burst into flames from the overload) the first time one of these cookers was turned on.

This cooker may have been the forerunner of today's microwave ovens, but as unsafe as it was from a radiation standpoint, I'm not surprised it didn't catch on. The government probably confiscated most of them for just that reason--that they were unsafe and extra-heavy power hogs. Even the first microwave ovens that were introduced in the mid-1950s by Tappan were probably much better, to say nothing of safer and smaller, than any "radio sandwich machine" of the '30s.

BTW, I bought a package of 12 "White Castle" brand frozen cheeseburgers the other day. The instructions for heating these begin as follows: "Separate sandwiches in the package." (They are packaged in cellophane bags, two to a package.) So even today, some national brands of frozen hamburgers/cheeseburgers are still referred to as "sandwiches", and probably always will be. I don't know how long White Castle has been in business, but if they still call these small hamburgers sandwiches, they may have been around for quite a few decades. Some expressions never seem to go out of style, I guess.

[bob91343]

I used to eat White Castle hamburgers in the early 1950s and they were well established then.

Actually I don't think the operator of a sandwich cooker necessarily was being cooked. And if he was, he would be sure to notice.

[leadlike]

Looks to me like it is for heating hot dogs. The dog would rest in the tube on top of the unit to await its 14-second rf roasting.

Well, speak of the devil...

I just heard on the radio that Time Magazine named White Castle the most influential hamburger of all time, and that they started in 1921 in Wichita, KS.

I guess it speaks well of sliders that they've been around so long, but it's kinda sad that Time is resorting to naming Hamburger of the Century to try to get readers.

[bob91343]

The thing that made White Castle so tempting was the fact that they sold tiny hamburgers on a dinner roll for a low price with all the free condiments you could heap on (including delicious onions). I used to buy a couple and eat them as I got back in line for more. I think they were a nickel or a dime in about 1950.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by bob91343

I used to eat White Castle hamburgers in the early 1950s and they were well established then.

Actually I don't think the operator of a sandwich cooker necessarily was being cooked. And if he was, he would be sure to notice.

I guess this one was so powerful, with those four high-power tubes, that it just might have caused some health problems from excessive radiation exposure--at least that's what the seller of this machine seems to think:

The Radio Sandwich Machine

A very rare device this is the
only known surviving example.
one has never been available
before at any auction or shop
this is a true museum peace, and
the history of it is, when this
came out the operator and anybody else nearby was being exposed two radiation.
So the government confiscated them all
for destruction this is why they are so rare
This is in effect one of the very first concepts of The first microwave oven
This device is extremely rare only about 283 made. None survive except for the one you're looking at, thay were originally for world's fairs carnival's and exhibition. the operator placed a hot dog in the top of the tunnel where radio frequency cookd it, unfortunately this also cookd the operator and that's why the u.s. government administration came in to destroy them all. It has 4 big transmitter tubes, and the RF does the cooking. Those fluorescent tubes are not electrically connected, but light up from being inside the field. Needs an external power supply, for both B+, and filaments. btw, if you're standing anywhere near it, when its on, then you're also getting cooked .

BTW, I read in a post following this one that the Radio Sandwich Machine may have been intended primarily for cooking hot dogs, not necessarily hamburgers, and the unit would do said cooking in about 14 seconds. I'm not surprised. There must have been 500 watts or more of RF power radiated from each of those tubes, which almost seem to me as if they might have been intended for a high-power AM broadcast transmitter. Four times 500 equals 2000 (!) watts, more than any commercially made microwave oven. And as I said, the Radio Sandwich Machine must have pulled thousands of watts from the AC line when it was in operation, so any place that had one or used one would be faced with a very large electric bill.

There is always the possibility that the seller was exaggerating beyond belief when he said "you're also getting cooked" when the Radio Sandwich Machine was in operation. I don't know if there were safe limits in the 1930s for radiation from machines such as this, but if there were not (and I don't believe there were), these units were safety hazards from the word go. If the U. S. Government did in fact eventually confiscate and destroy these machines for any reason, including but not limited to the radiation hazard, they did the right thing.

Today there are very strict standards as to radiation leakage from commercially-available microwave ovens, but when the Radio Sandwich Machine was new, I am sure the area of RF radiation was an unregulated "Wild West" sort of thing in which literally anything was possible, the safety (or the lack of it) of the user be darned. By the time Tappan introduced the first consumer-grade microwave in 1954 (followed by Amana's "Radarange" several years later), these issues had been addressed and dealt with, and regulations stating the exact amount of stray radiation allowed from such machines were in effect. Today it is illegal to sell any microwave oven with leakage figures in excess of the federal standards; of course, the Radio Sandwich Machine could not hope to meet, let alone exceed, these standards, which is probably the reason why the government confiscated and destroyed them. The same kind of thing happened with Zenith's "Radio Nurse" wireless intercom system of the late 1930s, although excessive radiation was not the reason these were destroyed in droves to the point where they are extremely rare nowadays, even on eBay or Craigslist. These intercoms were destroyed and production halted due to the name of a Japanese scientist of the '30s being shown prominently (or not so prominently) somewhere on the receiver unit, the chassis or elsewhere.

I don't know if there are any of those systems in existence anymore; like the Radio Sandwich Machine, they exist these days only as bad memories of a bad gone to worse time in American history.

If you have one of either of these, hold on to it, as there will be no replacing them anymore. I am not even sure it is legal to operate a unit such as the Radio Sandwich Machine today, given the unregulated and unlimited radiation levels from that bank of four transmitter tubes; however, with much smaller, more efficient, and safer microwave ovens now available for dirt-cheap (and I mean cheap) prices these days, the only real use I can see for an archaic behemoth such as the Radio Sandwich Machine would be as a museum piece. As I said in a previous post, the size of the machine itself, plus the power supply, would make it absolutely impractical for use in a modern kitchen, although since the intended market for these were exhibitions such as the 1939 World's Fair in New York, the size issue may not have been a concern, since the machine and its power pack would almost certainly be located in an area well out of sight of the general public. The "Radio Sandwiches" with sparks logo on the front of the machine did not, IMO, do much for the looks of the thing, so it would have been just as well if the unit were kept out of sight.

[bob91343]

If my neighbors should complain about my antenna towers, I will tell them it's for their safety, keeping the radiation well away from them.

[Dave A]

The cylinder on the top does lend itself to a hotdog or a very long hamburger. The bun warmer may be your own buns. I doubt Riders has the schematic. I did find an Oscar Mayer listing but I have to check that.

If you are not among the landed and cannot afford a Sandwich Machine or do not have 1200amp service at your house, you boiled hotdog fans huddled over your tin pot of hot water can gaze at the wonder of this later invention of the ages. Skip the dangerous campfire flames and save Southern Cal. No more RFing yourself to a cinder. No microwaves sparking the foil you forgot to take out of the microwave. No swooning for Howard Johnson's split-and-grilled hotdogs. The brute force dog cooker arrives in the modern kitchen of 1965! A baloney tube tribute to early television HV. Better living through amperage.

No campfires to suffocate you. No dangerous waves of death cooking the cat sleeping nearby. No military radar waveguides needed. Just electrocute your dog at 120v through the modern dog cooker and the wonders of salinity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St2USEfQxZU

And I do have one of these capital punishment dog cookers. Westinghouse I think from the 60's. The lid is the interlock like the vid. 120v on the lid and the circuit completes when it is lowered to the dog tines...in parallel for a Super Bowl party. It does cook in about 3 minutes and the dog comes out looking most unappetizing. Warped, bloated, discolored, hot and a burned spot worthy of a Texas penal institution.

And I have seen a lunch counter version of this from the 40's (and he will not sell it to me). It was a stand-up version about 2'x3' with the tines poking out and no cover. Dogs killed in the open. Great artwork on the porcelain face. Stab on a dog, flip the switch and watch your dog go to it's great reward right there on the counter in front of the happy clown face artwork. Sure to impress 10 year old kids and keep them in therapy forever.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

As I said in a previous post, the size of the machine itself, plus the power supply, would make it absolutely impractical for use in a modern kitchen, although since the intended market for these were exhibitions such as the 1939 World's Fair in New York, the size issue may not have been a concern, since the machine and its power pack would almost certainly be located in an area well out of sight of the general public. The "Radio Sandwiches" with sparks logo on the front of the machine did not, IMO, do much for the looks of the thing, so it would have been just as well if the unit were kept out of sight.

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.

[Jeffhs]

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.

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.