History of Microwave Engineering

"Those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

- George Santayana

Let's put it another way... if you show some respect and interest in the history of your engineering field, you increase the chances that anyone is going to remember your small contributions when you're dead and gone. Forget about the ephemeral puffery that sustains the internet, go buy some used textbooks and see how your grandparents solved complex problems with just caffeine, a pencil and a slide rule.

Here a page on the history of microwave diodes (new for April 2020)

Here's a link to a description of the first microwave link between New York and Boston.  Work like this is what made national broadcasting possible in the first half of the twentieth century, long before satellites made coast-to-coast transmissions routine.

http://d2xunoxnk3vwmv.cloudfront.net/uploads/1947-ATTs-First-Microwave-Radio-Route.pdf

Here's the history of stripline

And here's the histiory of microstrip

Lean about MIT's RadLab here

A page on the history of the microwave oven, with information you likely won't hear anywhere else!

Here's a page on SIGABA.

Here's a page that deals with the history of the radar letter bands.

Our "Why Fifty Ohms?" page deals with the math behind the history of why we use 50 and 75 ohm transmission lines.

Check out this page on the Mark 53 VT fuze from World War II.

Here's a downloadable pdf file that describes AT&T's first microwave link between New York and Boston, in 1947.

Here's some perspective on K-factor, by John Rollett, who came up with the concept in 1962.

Check out these "Historical Ads" from Varian, circa late 1950s!

Check out our new "Where are they now"? web page for more info on the history of microwave engineering.

We have a separate page on the history of microwave CAD.

Here's a page on historical test equipment for your amusement.

Here's a page on slotted lines, once used for measuring VSWR.

We've started documenting the history of MMICs here.

The Microwave Hall of Fame

This is our tribute to for the best names that are associated with microwave engineering.

Here are links to our three-part Hall of Fame:

Hall of Fame Part 1: contains microwave people up until the 1920s.

Hall of Fame Part 2: contains the early development of radar, through the end of World War II.

Hall of Fame Part 3: contains people from the second half of the twentieth century, through today.

Want to nominate someone for the Microwave Hall of Fame? Drop us a line!