COMMEMORATIVE FEATURE
A MICROWAVE JOURNEY:
1958–2008, PART I
This history of Microwave Journal as told through the articles that appeared in the magazine over the
past 50 years is also the history of the microwave industry as told by those in the business. This series
will journey through the evolution of our technology over the past five decades as described in the
nearly 600 issues of Microwave Journal. This first part in our series presents the background of the
individuals behind the magazine, the state of the industry in the 1950s and a glimpse at the content
appearing in our earliest editions. Throughout the rest of this year, this series will take a decade by
decade look at our journey and the challenges the microwave business faced over time as documented
on the pages of Microwave Journal.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW SERIES
MWJ SPEAKS WITH WILLIAM AND IVAR BAZZY, HORIZON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS.
VISIT WWW.MWJOURNAL.COM TO READ THIS IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW.
We start this story of the microwave
industry with the invention of the
cavity magnetron in England under
wartime pressures. By 1939, English scientists
had already installed a coastal radar system.
Based on the early success of radar, the British
military now desired radar sets small enough
to fit on ships, airplanes and munitions. To do
so, engineers needed to use much shorter
wavelengths, like those in the microwave region. And so, English researchers—Boot and
Randall—developed a working cavity magnetron, which was able to produce over 400
watts of power at the extremely short wavelength of 9. 8 cm (about four inches). In September of 1940, a British delegation under Sir
Henry Tizard carried a cavity magnetron secretly across the Atlantic and persuaded the
US government to begin large-scale development and manufacturing of the device.
The Tizard mission convinced the US government that radar was becoming an important
weapon in the war, which consequently led to
the establishment of the MIT Radiation Lab
(RadLab) to pursue this technology. The work at
the RadLab opened up an extensive new realm
known as microwave engineering. After the war,
the RadLab work would be shared with the
world in a monumental publishing effort known
as the MIT Radiation Laboratory Series of
books. The 28 volumes of this series encapsulated a huge amount of knowledge generated during the war and strongly influenced many areas
of postwar engineering.
RadLab also established a strong institutional
link between government, industry and academia. With the US government as the sole customer for radar systems, companies such as GE,
Westinghouse, Sylvania, Sperry Gyroscope, Motorola, Bell Labs, Hughes Aircraft and Raytheon
would each get into the microwave component
development and manufacturing business.
After the war, defense spending dropped
dramatically and with little or no civilian use
of radar at the time, the industry all but disappeared. Some looked for jobs outside of microwaves while others pursued niche commercial applications and the few defense contracts
available. Then the Korean War began and the
defense department began substantial funding
of R&D again.
DAVID VYE
Microwave Journal Editor
