And here's another review
My CCRadio Report to IRCAThe CCRadio: The Radio That Wasn't by Kevin 
Redding,
[log in to unmask]
We all have heard the hype on the Art Bell show "Coast to Coast" and the 
Rush
Limbaugh program about the "Best AM radio ever", the CCRadio. If you go to
www.ccrane.com, heres what they say. "Never before has a radio been 
specifically
designed for talk radio, news, sports and weather. Twenty years of dreaming,
planning and engineering went into the development of this radio. Audio has 
been
specifically tailored for the human voice."
The claims of "The Most Powerful AM / FM Radio Ever Made" and "Hear Radio 
How It
Was Meant To Be" are now gone from the site where they were once prominently
shown.
This is a very good radio for a casual listener and not a serious DXer. 
Anyone
who expects otherwise is going to be sadly mistaken. I would classify this 
radio
as one that is a fair to good radio that can do some nice domestic DXing. If 
you
purchase it with that in mind, then you will not be disappointed.
Let me describe the radio to you. The CCRadio is smaller than the GE 
Superadio
III. It is 11"W x 6.5"H x 4"D. There is a very large LCD display with large
numerics shown on the screen. It is even easy for my 45 year old eyes to 
make
out with bifocals. The radio weighs about 4 lbs. without batteries.
There are treble and bass controls, an up or down tuning button which moves 
the
frequency 10 kHz on AM, light switch, band selector, clock / frequency 
display
and a sleep timer button on the front. On the side there is a very large 
dial
which tunes in 1 kHz steps, a lock switch, volume pot and jack that will
accomodate stereo headphones although there is no AM, FM or TV stereo on 
this
unit.
On the top of the set there is an alarm button and a button that sets the
weather alert for when the alert tone is set by the NWS in case of an 
emergency.
Across the set are five large round buttons marked one through five. Each 
band
has 5 memory settings. On the end of the top above the LCD there is the 
power
switch. And near the alarm button there is the FM / TV / WX telescoping 
antenna
which seems to be rather short at about 20 inches.
The radio is carried by a handgrab recess in the back and this is rather
unfortunate. This radio desperately needed to have a handle. When you pick 
the
radio up via the hand access your thumb or heel of your hand rests on the
control buttons on the top and changes frequencies, sets alarms, turns off 
the
radio or turns off the weather emergency alert.
The CCRadio I purchased was the model with the DC charging circuit and the 
LED
light. These jacks are found on the back along with external AM antenna
connections. The AM antenna connections are virtually useless and I would 
not
attempt to attach any antenna to it as there is very little to be gained by
doing this as the ferrite antenna in the unit can not be disabled.
The LED light which is an option, is very bright and the light exceptionally
white. The light has no consideration for turning it on and off while 
connected
to the radio. Either the light is plugged in and running or unplugged and 
off. I
find that for a light that is $39, this is an extremely glaring omission.
The DC charging circuit which also is optional, can either be used with a 6v
wall wart or a solar panel. I do not have the solar panel but it is said to 
be
able to charge the four optional NiCd batteries in 67 hours using the solar
panel. The optional 6v wall wart will charge the NiCds in 27 hours. The 
expected
run time on the NiCds is 48 hours. The radio seems to like batteries a great
deal.
This radio tries very hard to be a lot of things to a lot of people. The
frequency coverage is from 520 - 1710 on AM, 87.5 - 108.0 on FM, TV channel 
2
-13 and all seven channels on the weather band. The set has an alarm, a 
sleep
timer and a snooze feature.
When it comes to AM reception, if you live in the city and are surrounded 
with
many signals, this may not be the radio for you. I have observed that this 
radio
is very sensitive but not very highly selective. I live approximately 3 
miles
from KMIK 1580's antenna. On my Radio Shack DX-398 [ Sangean 909 ] I have 
KMIK
and its splash from 1570 to 1590. On the CCRadio KMIK kills the band from 
1540
to 1620 and also has its images popping up in places on the X-band during 
the
day. I have a similar problem with KXAM 1310 also about 3 miles away running 
5
kW where the spread is larger on the CCRadio than the DX-398.
However if you are not in proximity of a local 50 kW or 5 kW station, the 
radio
is fine and is not prone to overloading as it is nearer to an antenna. I 
would
say that this is the major problem with the CCRadio. The sensitivity is ever 
so
slightly better than the GE Superadio III and selectivity less on the upper 
end
of the band than the GE model.
This radio will perform very well though if not in the vicinity of any 
strong RF
signals and if you are in an area where you don't have to deal with this it 
is a
solid radio.
There is an issue with the memory display on the LCD that C. Crane and 
Sangean
needs to address and is common on all three CCRadios I have used. Once the 5
memories on the bands are set, and only on AM, if you press the memory 
buttons
the selection comes right up and the memory number on the LCD is fine. 
However,
for example if memory button 4 is set for 1450 kHz and you tune with the 
DIAL,
at 768 kHz the M-4 shows although this is not where the setting is. It has 
no
bearing on the operation of the radio, it just is there. There are several
places where memory numbers show up at odd places. Not good programming nor
quality control to have this issue show up in a 160 dollar radio.
The reception on the weather band is adequate and nothing exceptional. On 
most
radios that have the weather band, I get five different stations but 
generally I
only get three on the CCRadio and sometimes four with a lot of antenna 
twisting.

I have found the TV section to be poor at best. For example, I have a 
channel 4
in Tucson that is easily receivable on the Optimus 12-604a which is NOT 
known to
be a DX monster. The CCRadio has an image of KDKB 93.3 FM right on top of 
KVOA 4
Tucson's signal rendering it unreceivable. Channel 7 from Prescott is doable
with other radios but there is an image of KNIX 102.5 squarely atop its 
signal.
On FM I have found that this is your typical lackluster Sangean built FM 
section
that is not only weak and lifeless but full of images. I have only seen one
Sangean radio on FM that was not full of images and that is the DX-398 with 
RDS
but even that is fairly dead and impervious to most DX.
I have two stations I use as a standard for FM reception. One is KAHM 102.1 
in
Prescott [100 driving miles] as I am on the edge of its receivability and 
the
other is harder to hear on a portable in Mesa, Arizona, KMGN 93.9 from 
Flagstaff
[180 driving miles]. Both of these stations are fairly doable on a GE 
Superadio
and for the CCRadio costing 3 times as much as a GE Superadio, well I 
believe
the reception should be able to be duplicated if not superior. Guess what? 
It
isn't. KAHM is receivable although weakly and KMGN, forget it.
My take on the CCRadio. This is a good radio on AM reception for those who 
are
not in close vicinity of an AM transmitter and tower. The radio when it is 
not
there is not overloaded and quite selective. It will pull in DX and do a 
fair
job and somewhat better than a GE Superadio under those conditions.
The TV / FM / and WX bands are usable in a local sense and do a good enough 
job
in that role. This radio was not sold as a top of the line powerhouse in 
these
areas and they are good enough to get the job done.
I believe that this radio is priced way too high for what you get and would 
be
better if it were priced at nearer to $100 than $160. The radio has an 
advantage
over the GE Superadios in that it has a digital readout and a clock plus the 
GE
does not have WX or TV. However for the price, I believe that the GE 
offering is
hard to beat at $50.
This CCRadio would be highly recommended if the new price was $120 or less 
but
it is not the best AM radio ever made. It is a very good to fine set for 
someone
who is a domestic DXer and is well made but it doesn't live up to the hype 
it
has received. Its definitely a little better than the GE Superadio III but
certainly not as good as a Sony 2010 with its ability to lock on to a 
signal.
I would not say that its a no buy, but will say that you should consider 
whether
or not you can deal with a radio that overloads near strong RF more than 
other
radios, and how much you want the TV, FM and WX reception before buying. At 
$160
you might want to consider waiting for a sale on the DX-398 at $30 more and 
get
SW, continuous coverage from 153 kHz to 30 mHz and FM with RDS which is a 
very
nice feature.
Its like everyone always says, there is no such thing as a perfect radio. If 
you
are considering one, this may work for you and do a fine job under the right
conditions since this is still a good, but not great, receiver.
Kevin Redding
Mesa, Arizona
The original version of this text appeared in the AM Radio List on the NRC's
site.