For years, I've been waiting to find a RR4DW or older Radarange locally and I finally found one!  It's a RR2. 

And it works!

Cory or Ben, can you tell me what's the year of manufacture by the serial number?  I'm guessing 1968-69 as it seems newer ones seem to have a darker color control panel in ads. But I'd really like to know more about these!  

Nice rare find these days,, especially that model. It looks like you're missing the glass tray though?   

Somethings wrong with mine right now that needs addressing... for some strange reason it began starting up all on it's own even though both dials were in the off position. I don't know what to make of it so I carted it down to the basement.  :( 

You're right Pete, it's missing the glass tray. I hope to find one for it!

What's the model number of yours?  

Ben,

The chrome has some minor pitting but it's in quite good shape and it seems to work well! Both timers light up and work too! I'll need to find a glass tray for it and probably replace the power cord.

I have been searching for one like this or a newer one for quite some time locally and I finally got one at a reasonable price. Not a 15$ bargain but twice that price was still ok I think!

Cory, it does have a foot at the back (I was wondering why!) but the model tag is under it. (just below the left side of the door). 

I just had to eat a frozen dinner to try it! It's a bit slower than my two RCM-10, I guess it has a lower power rating. What are they? If I remember well, my RCM-10 (RR9) are something like 725 or 750W? Other than that, I noticed that these have a motorized stirrer. It's strange to hear the cooking sounds through the grille in the door! Which model introduced the glass door?

There are two stickers at the back

The other one:

Another view of the back. 

Ed,

I have an Hitachi with a turntable (and a newer Sanyo too) and both make eggs explode on highest settings! (the Hitachi just has a Defrost function). With my newer late seventies Amana/Frigidaire "Touchmatic" style MW ovens, there's still no turntable but if using a low power setting (I use "2"), eggs won't explode... In both my newer MW ovens, the stirrer is air driven and they both didn't turn (which caused hot spots) because the plastic shield under them has deformed over time. I just had to cut about 1/4" of the stirrer blades to make them work again. 

Paul,

I think this sticker applied to refrigerators too! 

It's just a perforated piece of stainless steel. That's what's needed to stop the microwaves from going out. I'm wondering what happens if you put a paper clip through one of these holes while the microwave oven is working. I did use one to clean a few holes that were blocked by food particles but not while it was working!

Here's a link to Cory's website. Looking at it again has answered some of my earlier questions!

I guess these changes happened at the same time they covered the grille in the door and they changed from a motor-driven stirrer to an air-driven stirrer. 

I just ordered a glass tray for it on eBay. With the shipping, it will cost more than the MW itself... But it won't cost more than visiting all the thrift stores in the region again for one of these (I already did it!). 

I just hope it will get here in one piece!

The only microwave oven I ever had with a turntable is the Hitachi in the picture above (which I don't use much). All the others had none and I never had an issue with that. 

The only problem I had was with blocked stirrers in the "newer" Amanas with an air driven stirrer which caused hot spots. Once repaired, they heat more evenly.  To anyone who still uses their RR4 or newer Amanas and that noticed it cooks very unevenly, I'd suggest to look at the stirrer to see if it moves while the MW is operating. You don't see the stirrer itself but you can see it's shadow moving on the white splatter shield when the light is on. If it doesn't, chances are it's blocked by the splatter shield that has distorted. To easily fix that, simply remove the shield and cut about ¼" of the aluminum blade where it contacts the shield (that should happen on the part of the shield that goes up near the light bulb at the back of the oven.

There were quite a few on eBay when I checked but none available to Canada... I emailed one of the sellers who accepted to ship it here. If you still have the link, you can still post it! It might serve other members or even myself if it's cheap (I have 3 ovens that use these so having a spare isn't a bad idea!). 

Really?

Can you post a picture of it and of the serial number? It would be interesting to know when they started to add that!

Is the control panel on yours painted in the same gray as mine or is it darker? I have seen some ads featuring RR-2s that seemed to have a darker panel. Maybe it's just in ads...

Differences between my RCM-10 and RR-2

RCM-10 with air-driven stirrer.

RR-2 with motor-driven stirrer. The shield in this one is semi-transparent rather than more opaque white and there are no vent holes in it. It's also held by 7 screws instead of 4. 

I'm still waiting for the glass tray for the RR-2 but this weekend, I decided to follow the repair procedure on Cory's website for one of my other microwaves. My Frigidaire RCM-10 microwaves are almost identical to an Amana RR-9T (or RRL-9TA) and the touchpads and digital displays on both of them were a bit erratic. One of them became worse this week as it was constantly displaying "4"s even if I didn't touch the touchpad (the other does the same if it gets very humid inside). I bought 2 of the 3 capacitors that often fail in these this morning and I replaced them. The touchpad works nicely again! Now, I need to find the other capacitor and I'll replace it too as well as the 3 capacitors in my other RCM-10 oven.   Thanks to Cory's detailed explanations, it was an easy job!

Thanks Jon!

Hi Cory,

That means yours also has the buzzer? Do you know how to tell the approximate production dates from the serial numbers?

I thought most RR-2s lacked the buzzer as I saw this on your website: 

RR-2  (1968)

Essentially an RR-1 with the addition of a STOP button. The timers are still additive but the 25min timer has been bumped to 30min. Upper and lower timers swap locations where they will stay through the 4D series. The front is now entirely bright chrome. The perforated door screen continues to lack clear plastic panels on either side, making splatter cleanup difficult. RR-2's still lack an end of cycle chime/buzzer.

Ok, can you tell me if the shade of gray of the control panels changed during the RR-2 production. Some ads I have seen which display RR-2 seem to show some with a darker gray. It could be just how they were printed or scanned but since the newer ones seem to have darker panels I'd be interested to know if it was changed during the production of the RR-2.

Here's another RR-2 that I saw for sale that seems to lack the buzzer switch. It's control panel is the same color as mine. 

Phil, 

The first Frigidaire MW I found was in Atlanta!  The other one and the Amana were local finds. 

I have been searching for a "Touch-N-Cook" range or cooktop for a while and I couldn't find one...  I'd prefer a cooktop!

While we're talking about it, Frigidaire apparently started using "Touch-N-Cook" panels on it's 1973-74 appliances, I'm wondering when Amama started to use the touchpads on it's MW ovens (1975?) and how Frigidaire and Amana seemed to share this technology (GM on conventional ranges, ovens and cooktops, Amana on it's Radaranges) before Frigidaire had it's own "Touch-N-Cook" microwave ovens made by Amana? 

1600 watts is the power consumption. The power rating is much less! I think the first ones were 650, I think my RR-2 is 660. The newer ones were a bit more powerful but still below 800 watts! 

This ad for a RCM-10 from the late seventies says "from approximately 70 to 675 watts of microwave power"

Here's another RR-2 with detailed info on a museum website.

Phil, 

I think Cory has more information on early Radaranges than anybody that works at Whirlpool...

I also wish there would be a member gallery for all appliances (not only MW ovens!) searchable by brand and model number!

I just got the glass tray for my oven today and it's in very nice condition. 

Here's some interesting info about early microwave ovens (some commercial and some domestic models).

I have an RR-2 serial # S18353111, this one does not have the end of cooking buzzer. Would this one also be a 1969?, mine still works fine but is a little rough in some ways. These early models came with just a flat piece of tempered glass for the cooking tray, mine still has the original glass.

If anyone ever wants to sell a better condition RR-2 I would be interested, Thanks John.

Phil the model you posted has a sealed in tray, so it did not come with a removable glass tray. The good news is these newer style Pyroceram trays or floors were much more resistant to uneven heating and therefor did not break when someone places a bag of MW popcorn on it to pop.

So a word of warning for all of us that are using these older MW ovens that just have Pyrex floors or removable trays, don't pop popcorn directly on them, if I want to do this I always take a flat piece of Corning ware and sit the item on top. The advent of MW popcorn broke thousands of these nice heavy glass trays in older MW ovens.