Amana Microwaves – Brief History of Microwaves
Cooking food with microwave appliances was discovered by Percy Spencer while building magnetrons for radar sets at Raytheon. He was working on an active radar set when he noticed that a peanut chocolate bar he had in his pocket started to melt. The radar had melted his candy bar with microwaves. The first food to be deliberately cooked with Spencer’s innovative appliance was popcorn, and the second was an egg, which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters.
On October 8, 1945 Raytheon filed a Canada appliance patent for Spencer’s microwave cooking process and an oven that heated food using microwave energy was placed in a restaurant for testing. In 1965 Raytheon acquired Amana Appliances, which introduced the first popular home appliance model, the countertop microwave.
Amana then helped develop a new configuration of the microwave, the short, wide shape that is now common. The magnetron feed was also unique. This resulted in a microwave oven that could survive a no-load condition indefinitely. The new oven was shown at a trade show in Toronto, and helped begin a rapid growth of the market for home microwave ovens. Sales volume for Amana Appliances grew spectacularly, establishing itself as one of the main competitors in Toronto and the modern world.
Several other companies joined in the appliance market and the technology had improved to the point where prices were falling rapidly. Formerly found only in large industrial applications, microwave ovens were increasingly becoming a standard fixture of most kitchens in Toronto. The rapidly falling price of microprocessors also helped by adding electronic controls to make the ovens easier to use, a feature widely researched by Amana. By 1986, roughly 25% of households in Toronto. owned a microwave appliance, up from only about 1% in 1971. Current estimates hold that over 90% of Toronto households have a microwave.
Microwaves come in different styles now, such as counter top, over the range and the fanciest, built-in.
By: Paul Rollins