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Got my C Crane Skywave today

gar hi

gar hi

It's smaller than I thought but that's good and it's even a little smaller than the Grundig G8.

Just took a picture of when I was hearing Radio New Zealand which had a good signal.

C Crane Skywave.jpg

The shortwave reception is just as good as my Sangean ATS-405 which is big in comparison.

I will go outside tonight and check out the nighttime AM reception.

The only drawback I can say is that the frequency doesn't stay in the little window too long after you've tuned to it.

Haven't listened to the AIR band yet but that takes a lot of patience and I have to find out what frequencies are most often used.

I'm really impressed with this tiny radio and it's so solid.
 
gar hi said:
It's smaller than I thought but that's good and it's even a little smaller than the Grundig G8.

Just took a picture of when I was hearing Radio New Zealand which had a good signal.

View attachment 4710

The shortwave reception is just as good as my Sangean ATS-405 which is big in comparison.

I will go outside tonight and check out the nighttime AM reception.

The only drawback I can say is that the frequency doesn't stay in the little window too long after you've tuned to it.

Haven't listened to the AIR band yet but that takes a lot of patience and I have to find out what frequencies are most often used.

I'm really impressed with this tiny radio and it's so solid.
Click to expand...

13840 from RNZI just peels the paint here so strongly it almost broke the needle on my digital signal strength meter on my ats 25 max
 
Hey Gar !
I did myself have a Grundig G8, found in some garage being cleaned out. It wouldn't stop beeping at inconvenient intervals, hi, and I had to use a straightpin to work some controls, so I sent it to a CE buddy I owed down in Florida who fixed it in about a minute and thanked me for the gift.
The wee Radio Shack-Job AM/FM/SW travel thing I bought for $29, marked down from $79 in the Shack's last days, looks very similar to your CCrane. Now, I don't know anything about 'workmanship' that goes into these modern pacifiers, but the FM aerial on mine is loose and fooey ....... setting the lousy time of day is prohibitively discouraging, and the only provision that still worls on it is a beeping alarm that only will go as high as 9 minutes. I use it as an egg-timer now.
Careful with that CCrane, Gar !
 
I've got the Grundig G3. Other than the clunky tuning/fine tuning, I like it. It's decent on MW and SW, average on FM. Is the G8 any better?
 
@ CTListener:
I was probaby mistaken when I said that the garage-dreck radio I sent to my pal was a Grundig G-8. All I remember was that it was a Grundig, and was the same size as the CCrane procured by gar hi.
(Fire away, all you advanced DXers here. I think I can endure 8 lashes from a wet clip lead.)
 
I got the Grundig G8 around 2010 after not having listened to shortwave in almost 30 years and it was so nostalgic being able to listen again and hear stations like WWV.

And I ended up having the same beeping issue you mentioned, Steve, and I forget how I resolved it.

But the reason I no longer have the radio now is because after not having used it for a couple months, I went to use it again and for some reason it was all sticky and would get on my fingers, make them sticky too, and I had to wash them.

Here it was a perfectly good radio that I could no longer use because of that.

I didn't want to just toss it out, so I went to a pawn shop and got $15 dollars for it.

Talk about a strange radio experience. šŸ˜®
 
gar hi said:
I got the Grundig G8 around 2010 after not having listened to shortwave in almost 30 years and it was so nostalgic being able to listen again and hear stations like WWV.
But the reason I no longer have the radio now is because after not having used it for a couple months, I went to use it again and for some reason it was all sticky and would get on my fingers, make them sticky too, and I had to wash them.
Here it was a perfectly good radio that I could no longer use because of that.
I didn't want to just toss it out, so I went to a pawn shop and got $15 dollars for it.
Talk about a strange radio experience. šŸ˜®
Click to expand...
The sticky case phenomenon also happens to some radios from Eton over time. I have an Eton / Red Cross wind up emergency radio and the outer case of that radio had also become sticky and slimy the last time I used it. It seems that the plastic/rubber outer case breaks down chemically over time. I've seen the same happen with things like imitation leather in the past. There are Youtube videos out there that describe how to clean it up - I'm not mistaken it takes a cleaning agent, a brush and a bit of time/elbo grease, unless it's not worth it to you in which case you get rid of it and buy something else...
 
I had the same sticky case problem with a Grundig G8. Max Pro Citrus Power Remover cleaned it up completely. Iā€™ve also used Max Pro successfully on other electronic equipment that became sticky.
 
At least it's good to know I wasn't the only one.

I did try to clean it but obviously didn't know the right thing to use.

Had I known it was a common problem, I could have Googled it or looked on YouTube.

Oh, well.
 
CTListener said:
Sticky case phenomenon noted also on the G3. I always figured I'd somehow stored it incorrectly.
Click to expand...
This happens with rubberized products. We have a lantern that we use during power outages that has a rubberized handle. It, too, has become tacky to the touch. With radios, my CC Pockets have developed this problem as well. I also had to strip the coating off my G8. That worked, but the result marred the cabinet and left a slightly strange odor on the radio. I have two Sangean DT-800s (one the North American version, one the European version) that have a rubberized strip around the radio. So far, no problems but I'm watching them closely for problems.
 
gar hi said:
It's smaller than I thought but that's good and it's even a little smaller than the Grundig G8.

Just took a picture of when I was hearing Radio New Zealand which had a good signal.

(picture)

The shortwave reception is just as good as my Sangean ATS-405 which is big in comparison.

I will go outside tonight and check out the nighttime AM reception.

The only drawback I can say is that the frequency doesn't stay in the little window too long after you've tuned to it.

Haven't listened to the AIR band yet but that takes a lot of patience and I have to find out what frequencies are most often used.

I'm really impressed with this tiny radio and it's so solid.
Click to expand...

After more than two years, I'm quite happy with my Skywave. Not only is it a very good little performer (as opposed to "great"), but it's also proving to be very durable. The small size is another plus as far as I'm concerned. Particularly speaking as a guy who travels. The only drawbacks for me are minor. I'd like to see a ":kical-DX", as well as as a BFO function.

Definitely one of the best radios out there at the sub-$100 price point. Lots of features and lots of quality for the money.
 
cyberdad said:
After more than two years, I'm quite happy with my Skywave. Not only is it a very good little performer (as opposed to "great"), but it's also proving to be very durable. The small size is another plus as far as I'm concerned. Particularly speaking as a guy who travels. The only drawbacks for me are minor. I'd like to see a ":kical-DX", as well as as a BFO function.

Definitely one of the best radios out there at the sub-$100 price point. Lots of features and lots of quality for the money.
Click to expand...
It's a very good package overall, and C. Crane customer service is among the best, too. I'm mostly an FM listener, and find that the older Tecsun models do just slightly better. I also wish C. Crane had used a whip antenna with a proper length for FM, instead of one that's shorter than 30 inches. But it is excellent on AM.
 
I've neard nothing but good things about the CC Skywave.

RE: G8 Beeping: Most post 2010 radios seem to have something in a menu somewhere to turn it off. My new Tecsun PL-398 (a 2010's design) does.

There's a vid I found on YT that deals with the G8's beep. Maybe it would stop all beeping.
 
jim-satx said:
I had the same sticky case problem with a Grundig G8. Max Pro Citrus Power Remover cleaned it up completely. Iā€™ve also used Max Pro successfully on other electronic equipment that became sticky
Click to expand...
I have a couple of Sansa Fuze MP3 players (hey, they do have FM tuners) whose cases turned to mush. 10 patient minutes with some alcohol wipes exposed really nice looking aluminum shells under the muck.
 
KenoGuy said:
I have a couple of Sansa Fuze MP3 players (hey, they do have FM tuners) whose cases turned to mush. 10 patient minutes with some alcohol wipes exposed really nice looking aluminum shells under the muck.
Click to expand...
I had the same problem with mine, but didn't bother trying to take care of it because the battery for each one started failing to hold a charge. So I gave up on them. The weird connector was also somewhat annoying to deal with. If you recorded radio audio with one, you might also have noticed the rather unusual format: WAV with a 24 kHz sampling rate.

It's also seemed weird that the Fuze battery failed so soon while my Sansa Clips, a less expensive product, are still going strong.
 
cyberdad said:
After more than two years, I'm quite happy with my Skywave. Not only is it a very good little performer (as opposed to "great"), but it's also proving to be very durable. The small size is another plus as far as I'm concerned. Particularly speaking as a guy who travels. The only drawbacks for me are minor. I'd like to see a "local-DX", as well as as a BFO function.
Click to expand...
My G2, which only operates on SW & FM off the whip, sometimes overloads on SW (hasn't recently, since the Sunspots dived in 2017, and the relative increase in solar activity hasn't caused overload since then), but when it did, shortening the whip antenna acted as an RF Gain, in a way.

It eliminated the overload, and the target stations on SW came through a lot better.

On FM I never noticed overload, but I'm sure that shortening the whip would do the same thing. DSP chips max the sensitivity to the antenna, but shortening the antenna seems to tame that somewhat.

On MW, my G2 doesn't overload, it has a smallish loopstick and I use a Select-a-Tenna or AN200 with it to DX.
 
The AM at night on the CC Skywave is comparable to my little Sangean DT 200-X but I got it for the shortwave which is great for it's size.

Haven't heard anything yet on the AIR band but on 120.000, there's some kind of silent carrier signal there.

Maybe it's the control tower for Hilo International about 12 miles away but that's not a busy airport at all and serves only three airlines.

Being that I'm 1,300 feet in elevation, I was wondering how far away I'd be able to hear any air traffic and is the AIR band affected by Tropo as much as FM?
 
gar hi said:
The AM at night on the CC Skywave is comparable to my little Sangean DT 200-X but I got it for the shortwave which is great for it's size.

Haven't heard anything yet on the AIR band but on 120.000, there's some kind of silent carrier signal there.

Maybe it's the control tower for Hilo International about 12 miles away but that's not a busy airport at all and serves only three airlines.

Being that I'm 1,300 feet in elevation, I was wondering how far away I'd be able to hear any air traffic and is the AIR band affected by Tropo as much as FM?
Click to expand...
Technically, yes, the Air Band is in the VHF range and consequently there should be some tropo effect, or even Sporadic E.

The main difference between Air Band and VHF-Hi band is that the Air Band is AM modulation. The way the atmospherics and ionosphere affects the frequency range should, technically, be much the same.

Some 2 Meter contacts with Hawaii have happened historically during tropo / sporadic E (I think it's been the former, but going on memory here).
 
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