Microwave surfing - which came first: big bang or big crunch?

Microwave radio astronomy has been one of the driving forces behind the spectacular success of the "standard" account of the origin of our universe, popularly known as the inflationary "Big Bang" theory. This article briefly reviews a few concepts in the field including the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, the cosmic background imager, the degree angular scale interferometer, the grafting of "dark energy" onto the prevailing inflationary Big Bang model, and the conception of the cyclic universe paradigm.