There was a "Good Eats" (hosted by Alton Brown) on making Jerkey recently. One thing I remember from it was that when making jerky, you want to dehydrate it, not cook it, so any dehydrator that uses heat to remove moisture is less than optimal.

His solution? Sandwhich the strips of meat between furnace air filters. Looked like he had a sandwich of 5-10 filters, with strips of meat in the accordion folds of each filter, strapped together in a stack using bungie cord. This was then placed in an open window with a fan blowing through it. 8 to 12 hours later, jerky! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

(Disclaimer: I never tried this. Don't even like jerky. But "Good Eats" is cooking for nerds. Good show.)