Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Amana Radarange


Here's how the new Amana Radarange microwave looks in the Gochenour kitchen.  It's one of the newest things we have in there. That and the Mr. Coffee.  Modern convenience, what can I say.. (it's the thing on the left counter top with two knobs on it.  The upper knob goes to 5 minutes and the lower knob goes up to 30 minutes of radar cooking. The knobs light up when turned on. 

I found out that the polarity of the microwave gets reversed back and forth and that creates friction in the food which heats and cooks it.  Early models of these had an issue of the door leaking microwaves, but that was resolved in 1971 and this is a 1975 model.  A good rule of thumb is if you feel like you are getting hot next to a microwave, then stand back away from it.

From what I understand, Raytheon built a microwave oven in 1947 called the Radarange, then a consumer microwave oven came out under the Tapan brand in the mid 50s but they were expensive and not very common.  In the late 1960s they produced a model like this branded Amana Radarange and had a campaign to introduce them to the public.  At that point they  became affordable and popular and the rest is history. The main difference between this one and the late 60s one is the door leak has been fixed and it has a defrost switch.  Other than that they look the same from what I can tell.

2 comments:

Jules said...

Super cool, HB. I'm glad you found that.

don said...

Yes it's really cool and well made too. The real deal.