Anyone buy from C. Crane Company?

[SatinKzo]

http://www.ccrane.com/

Anyone ever bought anything from these guys? I visit their site now and then thanks to advertisements on Coast to Coast AM.

Anyways, I find myself in need of a new radio with good AM reception (I'm an AM junkie). Seems no store models around me have anthing but a paperclip for AM antenna as I've been through 6 radios trying to find one for my nightstand that has good AM reception.

So, I figured why not look at C Crane, but I was curious if anyone here has bought anything from them?

 

[lunkie]

I see that CC is now selling this:
http://www.ccrane.com/radios/am-fm-radios/ge-superadio-iii.aspx.
I have one and it works very well, nice AM tuner. You might find it cheaper doing an internet search, but I see that CC is offering a perf upgrade for $8.00 that you might want to do. The tuning can be somewhat vague, the upgrade seems to fix it.

 

[jayelem]

I've had several shortwave radios , and a friend has ordered SW Radios thru them ( c.c. crane ), I'd wait till someone else here chimes in with AM radio preference.

I have a TIMEX Alarm Clock radio with excellent selectivity and sound but there is a bad contact on the Tuner so whenever I lose AM radio I have no choice but go to FM , if not for that I would suggest this alarm clock radio.

I've had a Grundig radio years ago that was excellent , $ 200 so I guess it better be good , I replaced it with a high end Radio Shack SW Radio model .

You can always buy a $30 entry level SW Radio and try it for a couple of weeks , most places have a 30 day return policy , you might really like it , only drawback is some of the small radios have tiny mono speaker. Well it shouldn't make much of a difference on AM.

 

[voomvoom]

I've purchased a few items from them, a while back. A portable/windup shortwave antenna. A Super Select-A-Tenna, for AM reception. It's not an antenna, but a signal improver. It works sort of like a squelch on a CB radio. I still use this quite often. All in all, I think they are a good Company.

Al

 

[SatinKzo]

jayelem. yeah, I've been doing the "in home trial" with ALOT of radios. The one I had that is starting to flake out (old one, it picks up shortwave, am/fm, police band etc) but it picks up AM stuff for me (I'm in SW LP of Michigan) from Iowa, St. Louis MO, Canada, NY etc. It's just a basic unit, no special antenna. When I first dug it out of my parents basement and listened to it, I was dumbfounded on the reception/sensitivity.

 

[jayelem]

(I'm in SW LP of Michigan) from Iowa, St. Louis MO, Canada, NY etc. It's just a basic unit, no special antenna. When I first dug it out of my parents basement and listened to it, I was dumbfounded on the reception/sensitivity.

SW LP of Michigan - Hey I went to Cereal City in Battle Creek several years ago, also been many times to Warren Dunes State Park.

It's fun to DX with AM band , some of those lower powered transmitters come in pretty clear in the early hours of the morning , it also helps when High powered stations are off the air.

It's tougher to DX with newer car radios , but anytime I take a trip and get bored I go to AM and see what I pick up , once I'm about 3 hrs away from Chicago downstate I start to pickup stations from as far as Cuba , barely audible but I did follow a Baseball game and a Boxing match for a while.

I've seen at Circuit City cheaper SW Radios with Grundig and Eton nameplate (made in China) , I know one of them is even a wind-up for power outages , the thing is that you can never get good results listening to it at a store because of all the interference from the lighting so you really don't have much of a choice , you must take home to test.

Summer is so close and I like to check out Garage Sales , I really like older radios , we've had a Montgomery Ward Radio from the 70's that has the richest sound for AM , the band selector has problems so I get upset when someone changes it to FM because getting it back to AM is trouble.

SW Radios are really the best , so if you don't go for entry level check the sales ads for Radio Shack sometimes they have nice model for about $70 , and I bet C.C. Crane has some decent radios for that price range too.

I think some of the Radio Shack radios are actually same as Drake (Brand).

 

[SatinKzo]

Well, luckily for you, you got to cereal city before it closed down. I never made it there. I'm not from this are originally, I grew up in northern LP and attended Michigan Tech in the Keewenaw in the U.P. I love the U.P and want to retire there, but not many jobs up there for my taste. When I take vacations, that is where I head, back "home" and do a little shopping for land to buy.

Yeah, I have been waiting for the garage sale season to start to look for old radios. They just seem to be the best for non-fm stuff.

 

[dodge]

C. Crane

I have never bought from them, but their catalog is awesome. I have called them many times and most of the guys their are hams. They also carry Sangean sw stuff, I am a Sangean sw nut, i have 8 sangean sw radios. back in my younger days I always am dxed at nite and enjoyed it. I am into tv dx, Digital usuallly and enjoy that much as well, but the dx is never as good. I always would listen to wlw , whas and the big am station from boston. Coast to Coast am is a good program , and the am radio from c crane is supposed to be awesome and I beleive it is made by sangean.....

 

[dodge]

.

I think some of the Radio Shack radios are actually same as Drake (Brand).

Radio Shack sw radios are made by sangean, What happened to Cereal City??? always wanted to go, but never made it to Battle Creek.

 

[SatinKzo]

Well, like you dodge, I think many people always wanted to go, but never did. Heck I wanted to go but never did. It was taken over by a group to operate it and they had some pretty high expectations of attendance. Numbers weren't there and they decided to shut it down. Kind of sad, but they never advertised and it was very easy to forget it was there and I only live 30 minutes from there and work for a company that makes the Kellogg's product boxes.