Raytheon Amana Radarange Microwave Oven
Why r/BuyItForLife recommends it
11 mentions from real owners
- #1Aug 3, 2025
Picked up this Amana Radarange for $45 today off marketplace from the original owners. Still works like a charm!
I really do miss the days when you could buy things that were built with pride and were obviously designed to last... You just don't see things built like this anymore.
View on Redditopen_in_new - #2Aug 3, 2025
Picked up this Amana Radarange for $45 today off marketplace from the original owners. Still works like a charm!
Woah. My grandparents had a similar looking Amana. It outlasted them
View on Redditopen_in_new - #3Aug 2, 2025
Picked up this Amana Radarange for $45 today off marketplace from the original owners. Still works like a charm!
That was our first microwave. My mom got it at a discount because it was misbuilt and had 2 buttons labeled START. We were told we always had to keep a cup of water in it in case it was turned on accidentally. Apparently, it would explode the house if it ran empty. The cookbook that came with it had a great recipe for Salisbury steak. And a terrible one for cookies.
View on Redditopen_in_new - #4Aug 2, 2025
Picked up this Amana Radarange for $45 today off marketplace from the original owners. Still works like a charm!
These were and still are the Cadillacs of microwaves. It shouldn't be a surprise though, Amana introduced the very first home microwave in 1967.
View on Redditopen_in_new - #5Aug 2, 2025
Picked up this Amana Radarange for $45 today off marketplace from the original owners. Still works like a charm!
That thing is so ….. what’s the word….. intentional I feel like products these days just try to fit in, but that thing tried (and succeeded) at being legendary!
View on Redditopen_in_new - #6Aug 2, 2025
Picked up this Amana Radarange for $45 today off marketplace from the original owners. Still works like a charm!
Do the lights is your house or street block dim when your turn it on? My grandparents had one and the thing was a freakin tank.
View on Redditopen_in_new - #7Aug 2, 2025
Picked up this Amana Radarange for $45 today off marketplace from the original owners. Still works like a charm!
Those things were built like tanks. They use radio waves to cook food, so as long as they have a grounded metal mesh surrounding them (and they do if you look at the glass in the doors of most, if not all microwaves, you will see it) aka Faraday cage, there's little chance of that happening. Modern cheaper ones however, are another story. Some manufacturers have little to no understanding of the actual tech being used, so they cut corners where they think they can, and often times where they shouldn't. Using plastic exhaust fans being a prime example. Radaranges were the original microwaves. https://www.retromobe.com/2017/06/raytheon-radarange-worlds-first.html
View on Redditopen_in_new - #8Aug 2, 2025
Picked up this Amana Radarange for $45 today off marketplace from the original owners. Still works like a charm!
That’s a beauty. You probably paid the same price as the original owner. $45 in 1980 was $175 in today’s money and microwaves weren’t cheap back then. Source: I’m old.
View on Redditopen_in_new - #9Jul 4, 2025
My childhood microwave is 37 years old and going strong!
I am using an Amana Radarange that my parents purchased in 1981.
View on Redditopen_in_new - #10Jun 7, 2025
What is your most unintentional BIFL item?
I have one we bought in 1986. It’s an Amana Radarange. Still works like new. When we had the kitchen redone, I made them put in a cabinet big enough to hold it. I also drive a 2006 Toyota 4Runner that I bought new. Outside of it is beaten up, but the inside looks like new. I’ll probably be driving it until I’m too old to drive.
View on Redditopen_in_new - #11Jan 2, 2025
At In Laws This beast of a machine at my wife’s rents house. They say it been here 30+ years.
We used to have an early 1980s Amana Radarrange that was HUGE and would boil water in like 10 seconds 😂
View on Redditopen_in_new
