The diverter is a hollow piece of tin with holes in the sides meant to distribute heat evenly. They were commonly used on old gas stoves. I use it to make pancakes and burgers in lightweight frying pans. It does a good job of keeping the canister off the snow. As you can see, it's a very simple set up and the snow mound was used as a windbreak. The canister was near empty, so I'll assume it had the proper proportions of isobutane and propane remaining. I used this stove at 12,500' in the Sierra in Oct. on snow and it worked well at temps in the low 20's-high teens. In the Sierra, I constructed a rock well to place the stove in with snow packed around it. Even though it was very windy, nothing bothered the flame.