Features:

  • Small Lightweight Portable AM/FM/Shortwave/Weather/Airband Travel Clock Radio With Alarm
  • Lighted LCD Display, Rotary Volume Knob, Stereo Headphone Jack, Sleep Timer
  • 400 Memory Presets, Direct Entry Keypad, Autoscan Tuning, Signal Meter
  • Runs approx. 60-70 hrs. at moderate volume on (2) AA batteries (not included) or can be powered by an optional AC adapter
  • Includes Earbuds, Carry Case and Fold-out Backstand. 1 Year Warranty.
This little radio is amazing. It was made with so much in mind

10/10. This little radio is amazing. It was made with so much in mind. First, it is tiny, which is great. Classic transformer radio size. But it does so much so well. Great reception. I can pull in NYC from the Adirondacks on AM at night. Great for late summer Baseball!! The airwave I don't use so much, but when I do it's a great novelty. Just the accents you hear are great. NOAA weather is always a plus...Always!! It comes in a nice little carrying bag. Even down to the batteries, it is thought through. First, it is a charger in and of itself. That is phenomenal. Though it does you a mini USB cable. Not a Micro. I wish it came with one as they are becoming rare. However, just as an aside, when opening the battery compartment you will find a felt tab that helps you remove the batteries. It's those little things that make this tiny radio, such a great product. If you even think you might like it, you will.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!

I tried several similar radios and this one, the most expensive, is excellent in every way. It exudes QUALITY from the first time you pick it up. Easy to program....signal strength is strong.......the heft is indicative of quality components inside. Haven't tried the SW yet but I bought the CCrane antenna also and will try it later. Top Rated IMHO! P.S. And they didn't pay me a penny to say this! :)

strong FM and AIR, okay AM and SW, excellent headphone amp - beats Tecsun PL-660 hands down. Pocket sized too

I simultaneously bought a Tecsun PL-660 and a CC Skywave from Amazon. I got the black versions of each. Out of the box you can immediately feel that both have a good build quality. The turn knobs on the side of the Tecsun felt slightly lose; it was possible to wobble one a bit, but overall both feel great with the Skywave having a slightly better fit/build of the knobs. The other thing you notice straight out of the box if that the Tecsun has a lot more features available by buttons and a larger screen, but on the other hand it is a much larger item than the Skywave. The skywave fits in my sweater pocket no problem (although it's noticably bulkier than an iphone), but the Tecsun reminds me more of my old table top scanner; but that's okay, since would be okay with that, if the performance increase matches the size increase. Basically you could call the C Crane a pocket radio but the Tecsun is more of a desk-top, around-the-house radio, although I would be tempted to throw it in a backpack. Both radios come with a protective pouch for such activities. Both have a flip out stand on the back, but the Tecsun has two parts that pop out, making it very stable indeed. The Tecsun also has a much longer whip antenna. Both radios have a wrist strap, which I don't anticipate ever using, unless maybe i hung it off of a bag. Both have sleep timers. I like using the sleep timers at night when i go to bed. Each have more than enough memory slots for storing stations and settings. At first I wished the keypad on the CC was backlit but it's so simple and intuitive after one day i already knew all the buttons in the dark by touch. First, the Tecsun was harder for me to operate without checking the manual. Scanning and storing just isn't as quite as intuitive as on the C Crane radio. That said, I think the Tecsun has a lot more to offer in the long run, in terms of features, so the steeper learning curve might not bother some. And, it's not very steep. I do think the Tecsun manual is not quite as well written (more on that later). SOUND QUALITY: Both radios have a mono speaker. The Tecsun has a much larger speaker, afforded by the radio's larger size, and is capable of much louder volumes. There is absolutely no bass on the C Crane, although it is quite clear and good for voice (onc just has to accept it's a pocket sized radio, and one can be quite happy), where as the Tecsun has a bit of bass. However, the sound quality is not as good as I was expecting from reading previous reviews which said good things about the Tecsun speakers. I really couldn't listen to music on either radio, but both are fine for voice. One things I noticed immediately on the Tecsun is that although there is bass, the treble sounded overemphasized... you know that horrible splashy percussion sound. It is then I noticed the "tone" switch on the side of the Tecsun. It was set to "treble". The other option is "bass", which did increase bass but left the radio completely lacking in treble... also not desirable. The oddest part of all of that is there is no 'neutral' setting. The manual is especially useless in explaining exactly what the tone switch does, and I quote, "Push the [TONE] switch upward for "TREBLE" listening, downward for "BASS" tone. On the other hand, the CC Skywave has a 'voice' and 'music' setting, and the manual clearly explains what both do ('music' is full bandwidth and 'voice' applies a bandpass filter that reduces bandwidth which may help make voice more audible and I found it to remove noise on very weak stations - the manual was very clear about all of this and how to use it!). While I was disappointed with the speaker output this isn't a big deal breaker for me, because hey, it's a portable radio and I have my big hi-fi setup for when I'm not moving around. Before buying either of these I fully expected this and my plan was always to utilize the headphone outputs. I have quite a large collection of cans and in-ear-monitors and the idea was to use these radios on my commute, hiking, or around the house with headphones to not disturb others and get decent sound. Now, the shortfalls of EQing/tone-switch mentioned above with the Tecsun speaker carry over to the headphone output. On the other hand, moving over to the CC Skywave, the sound is really quite excellent. The only downfall I could point to is that the headphone amp does have a rather high noisefloor; there is a gentle hiss that can be heard if using isolating in-ear-monitors. Basically, the CC verged on sounding hi-fi! AM PERFORMANCE: Okay, onto the tuner performance. Again, operation for me was easier with the Skywave - I just found it more intuitive and only had to check the manual for special features. Starting with AM performance I found the Tecsun and the CC to be quite similar, with the Skywave having a slight edge in picking up stations, but I just did a quite test on a few stations; quite comparable. I know the PL-660 claims some fancy AM features but I don't see the proof in the pudding. FM PERFORMANCE: As for FM performance the Skyway did a great job picking up most stations I pickup with my McIntosh MR500 or my Sansui tuners, with their external antenna. It's truly impressive how well it picks up stations with that tiny whip antenna. And via headphones it can sound really really good for FM. Sadly the Tecsun was a disaster. I'm in SF and tuning into the classical station 90.3, which is a fringe reception station where I live is not problem on the CC Skywave - it's not perfect, but stereo and solid signal, albeit with a few artifacts. The Tecsun really couldn't even pick up the station at all. I never got stereo, and heard more of the Jazz station 1.5 MHz away, no matter which antenna gain setting I used. The Tecsun was able to pick up strong stations like 88.5 and the local jazz station in San Mateo. Even when tuned into a station with a strong signal the skywave had far fewer artifacts where as the Tecsun has significant distortion on parts of the music, even for strong signals. I was going between the two, using the headphone output, having both radios position in their optimum reception position. The CC Skywave did a better job across the board. Another odd thing is that the Tecsun tuner as offset. For example, to tune into 98.100, the best reception was had at 98.140 (whereas the CC Skywave was spot on at 98.100). This doesn't sound like a lot, but the offset wasn't consistant across the spectrum. It's really quite annoying. A rather odd thing is that when using the automatic scanning the radio would stop at 98.100, thinking it is strongest reception, but 98.1 to 98.18 were fringe reception and 98.4 was center. Maybe my particular unit has a fault, but I swear I heard someone else saying something like this in a review on one of the HAM websites. SHORTWAVE: Next I tried the shortwave. I was able to pickup a couple of stations on each, and the reception was quite comparable (possible with the Skywave coming through slightly stronger). I did not apply external antennas and just used the whip antenna. i didn't play with the SSB feature of the Tecsun (the skywave doesn't have this). I was able to pickup Australia in the mornings loud and clear, but I wouldn't say the SW feature is strong with the standard antennas. AIR: Moving over to AIR band, was tuned into SFO (120.5 MHz). The used two pairs of headphones, with one earbud from the Tecsun in my left ear, and an earbud coming from the CC Skywave in the other ear. No matter how I repositioned the devices I heard only part of the conversation on the Tecsun. With the Tecsun i only heard one party from time to time (tower?), while I could hear other parties on the Skywave. With the Tecsun it was like hearing one side of a phone call. The squelch feature on the skywave came in handy too. The CC Skywave also have weather band which works find. I can pick up two channels from my place. The Tecsun has a gain setting switch, which could conceivably help if you have two stations close together. If one was much stronger than the other you could get rid of the weaker station by turning to gain down. I played with this feature when doing my testing above and it didn't improve any of the issues I had with the Tecsun FM reception. The Tecsun does have an antennas socket, that the Skywave doesn't. (but you can get similar antennas that clip onto the whip antenna). I didn't test this with the provide wire antenna. I wanted to just compare the portable radios with their whip antenna. The Tecsun runs on 4x AA batteries, where as the skywave takes 2x AA batteries. i didn't compare lifetime. Both can charge if rechargable batteries are used. The Tecsun actually came with 4x rechargeable batteries and a switched-mode power supply. The CC Skywave came with no power supply of batteries in my package. However, this was on purpose in my case. While the Tecsun has only a regular circular DC socket, the Skywave has the option of a similar power supply, or using microusb (so I use my iphone charger and an appropriate cable, which I think is a much more elegant solution than carry an additional power supply). Both radios can recharge batteries internally. Both also come with earbud style headphones. I didn't use either since I have a bunch of high quality earphones. What I can tell you is that the CC Skywave earphones look quite stylish, almost like some VMODA, where as the Tecsun are much more utilitarian (plain grey). Perhaps my FM tuner issue is a fault, but given the much large size, and poor headphone output, I think the CC Skywave is drastically better on almost all fronts. I would love to hear any suggestions on portable tuners with even better headphone amps. I am returning the Tecsun, since I think it is not performing as advertised. I am keeping the Skywave and ordering another for my sister! EDIT: still happy with this as of Sep 2017! Great little unit. Not sure I noted this, but the battery usage is really low and impressive too.

While it is great, my old Super II radio has the edge ...

It does real well. It has about four times the reception that cheap AM radios have with their day time reception. It is out standing for night reception. While it is great, my old Super II radio has the edge on AM reception. No doubt the next level up by C Crane would compete well. Therefore, I would buy another one without hesitation and would highly recommend it. I can not address the other wave bands because I never use them. However, AM reception is outstanding both day and night, and the FM is as good as any other radio. I would buy it again. The only draw back is the speaker. It is not the best, but, then again you can't have your pie and eat too. This radio is the boss for its size in AM reception.

Perfect radio for every day use!

This radio has made me happy the moment I took it out of the package. I listen to it a LEAST a few hours every day/night. The reception is perfect, I love that it has the weather bands, in addition, I have put in batteries the moment I took it out of the box and have been listening to it for this long and the battery icon (which tells the power left in the batteries) and it has not budged. The unit is very battery friendly, and I love that. The light does not stay on, which I thought it did. I could not be happier with its size and weight. It is so light and smaller than I thought but the sound quality is amazing! I cannot say enough good things about this radio. Plus it has a sleep timer!! I recommend this to everyone that I talk to.

Solid 5 from a picky person

I am a radio aholic. I am very very hard to please. Generally, thanks to Amazon's generous return privileges, I return about 80% of the electronics that I buy. For whatever reason, if they are not spot on, they go back. I am extremely careful with packaging and try to return in 100% perfect shape. Having said that, this radio exceeded all the positive reviews and the few negative ones were more of a particular persons own lack of knowledge or willingness to "work around" certain inherent issues. Example: You would not go off road racing in a Ferrari. My use of the radio is perhaps the reason for my high ratings. I use the radio in conjunction with one of Ccranes FM transmitters ( the $50 one ) I plug it into an Amazon Kindle FIre, A Uniden Home Patrol 2, and an Ipad mini. I then can use the radio in my neighbors yard to listen to whatever with perfect clarity. The radio is quite intuitive. I did not need to read the manual to operate it. A few features require reading. ( how to reset, how to have certain features default etc ) The size is stellar. VERY small and yet quite acceptable reception. I live in a remote area and it picks up the 2 fm stations that I can get perfectly. AM reception .. it gets the 5 am stations that I can get in the daytime with acceptable reception. VERY easy to remember how to run the radio. If I go to a new town to visit, I can program it in less than 3 minutes with all the AM and fM and weather frequencies. My only disappointment is the lack of an ability to scan ( even slowly ) between air frequences that are stored. Not a big deal as this is not sold as a "scanner". I have 3 unidens that do the job nicely. What IS fun is to use it on a flight. Do a little homework and find out the airlines company frequency, the tower frequencies and "center" frequencies and program them in ahead of time. You can then plug in the earphones and listen to your flight as it transitions from Ground Control, to the Tower , and then to Departure, and then Center. The earphones are outrageous. I will be buying them from now on to replace Apple earbuds that fail. I mainly listen to audible books etc and the sound is almost as good as my Bose earbuds. Hope this helps. I have been acquainted with Ccrane since the original LED flashlights. ..in the 1990's and the company is over and ablove in support. I did purchase a 4 year warranty in case I drop spill etc but the radio seems rock solid. Cheers

One Great Little Radio

I have had this little radio for almost a year now, and I can say that is an incredible radio. If you are looking for a small radio that sounds great for its size, and is extremely sensitive on all of its bands, this is the one. The battery life (2 AA Alkaline batteries) is good. I have purchased other C Crane products in the past, and have never been disappointed. I would recommend this radio to a friend.

This radio becomes a companion real quick!

I love my Skywave! This radio has been awesome. It goes with me everywhere. In the evenings, I can even get shortwave in the house. There were a few requirements I had as I started looking for a portable radio. 1) Rechargeable. It's a true bummer to be left with dead batteries and a dead radio. 2) Weather (WX). I think weather is our most immediate threat. Plus, any other emergency will probably be covered by NOAA. The NOAA website had this to say: "Working with the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) Emergency Alert System , NWR is an "All Hazards" radio network, making it your single source for comprehensive weather and emergency information. In conjunction with Federal, State, and Local Emergency Managers and other public officials, NWR also broadcasts warning and post-event information for all types of hazards – including natural (such as earthquakes or avalanches), environmental (such as chemical releases or oil spills), and public safety (such as AMBER alerts or 911 Telephone outages)." 3) Weather alert. It's nice to be able to turn the radio off, yet be alerted to a tornado in the area. God forbid we ever have another national disaster, but I'd trust my Skywave to keep me informed. 4) Shortwave. I wish the Skywave had side band. But, shortwave will most likely be the communication standard during an extended disaster. Plus, shortwave is fun! 5) Radio alarm. This is a great feature for everyday convenience! 6) Small enough for daily carry. So, a few notes on my experiences so far. The rechargeable option works! But, I was under the impression I could power the radio from a USB battery charger. This is not the case. The radio draws so little current that the USB battery pack shuts off. I believe a USB battery pack would charge the Skywave batteries, but once you turn the radio on the charging stops. And so does the battery pack. Basically, you will be left without radio until the batteries are charged. This isn't a fault of the Skywave, it's just the nature of most USB battery packs. The weather alert is a tone. It doesn't turn the actual radio on. You get a beep, beep, beep, and need to turn the radio on to hear the alert. It dose work though. I'm a first time shortwave listener, and I can tell you that it is a blast! It's a thrill to pick up radio stations in Tennessee and Cuba with great clarity and regularity. I live in Texas by the way. Other stations depend on the weather, etc.. But, I've heard Chinese and Japanese so far. And a lot of Spanish. Which, living so close to Mexico it's pretty easy to pick up. I use a 23ft piece of wire at times to really reach out there. I attach it to the antenna with a binder clip. There's portable reels designed for this that are available for around $15. Note: The one from C. Crane is "capacitor loaded." From what I understand, a capacitor is used to make the 23' act as a much longer antenna. Not all shortwave reel antennas have this. I'll probably pick up a Crane antenna in the future. The radio is well laid out and intuitive. Coming from a HAM radio background, intuitive on a radio is impressive! There's nothing worse than trying to set up your radio and not remembering how to. The Skywave makes it easy to remember! As far as reception, I don't have any other shortwave radios. But, I can tell you that the Skywave is the best radio in the house for AM! It even rejects noise from the fluorescent lights, where other radios buzz. Note: AM uses the internal antenna. So, no need to extend the telescopic antenna. I've been real happy with my Skywave. It goes with me everywhere! I like that I can lock out the buttons while it's in a bag also. No worries of it coming on and draining the batteries. Speaking of which, the batteries last forever! Even if I was buying regular alkaline batteries, I wouldn't hesitate to leave the radio on all day at work.

I have found the reception to be equal to or better than two other short wave radios I have that ...

I have had this unit for a week now and put it through its paces. I have found the reception to be equal to or better than two other short wave radios I have that are a bit larger in size. Sound quality is really good as well. I especially like the fact that it has both short wave and weather bands with a weather alert setting. I did find the documentation somewhat lacking so I am, in part, experimenting with certain features to learn what the documentation left out. I have yet to discover if weather alert is just a beep or does it beep then go to the voice description of the alert and if not, can I leave the radio on while set to my alert channel so that when the alert sounds all I need do is turn up the volume to find out what the alert is all about. Either way I am pleased with its ability to function as a weather alert radio. I also paid attention to the charge feature. After the batteries were exhausted I set it to charge. The charge function only lasted 20 minutes and the batteries were only 5% charged so I fussed with that and found out that the USB charger I was using had an output of only .5 amp. I connected an Anker intelicharger to the radio and found that the batteries (2500mAhr) were fully charged after a charge period of 4.5 hours. The documentation indicates that the battery status indicator may not go all the way up with rechargeable batteries, I found that it does with a charger that has a greater output than the .5 amp. I had been using .The Anker varies according to the battery needs and can fast charge or slow itself down so as to avoid shortening the life of the batteries. Some evaluators indicated that they were disappointed with the length of the antenna. I can tell you that when I put the radio on the floor in my office it didn't receive all the FM stations I had tried. But when I put it on my desk it receives more FM stations than does my large FM radio. If there is anything different I would like it would be an auto switch from alarm to voice for at least or the first iteration. Again this may be the case but I have yet to verify it. A fully charged set of AA batteries lasted 72.5 hours constant run. So there would be sufficient power to allow the alert feature to be active for longer periods of time. The "alert" icon also stays lit after the set time for alert to run expires which can be confusing but wouldn't be if it were addressed in documentation and lastly an improvement in functionality would be if the user could set the weather alert to run constantly as opposed to a maximum of 16 hours. I am recording a full five stars for this radio because it is the only one I could find that has SW, Weather alert, Aviation frequencies and AM and FM. For the price, it is truly a powerhouse And it receives frequencies in all categories better than I expected. The operational features are definitely a plus. Those include a rotary volume knob, the charge feature, and it is really easy to use. The Skywave does all the things my larger SW radios do. In addition it has fewer buttons and is easier to operate. At the same time it has the additional feature of having a weather alert. I called C Crane for help with that which is not documented. Their tech support was no less than absolutely great. Because this is a brand new model they too were not sure of some of the features so they tested these features and got back to me in a very timely manner with the correct answers. I am truly pleased with this radio C Crane hit a home run with this unit.

Not just a rebadged Chinese radio. Designed specifically for C. Crane using the Si 4736 DSP Chip.

This radio has been reviewed on Radiojayallen, http://radiojayallen.com/c-crane-cc-skywave-radio/, and is being discussed extensively in the Yahoo Group Ultralight DX: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ultralightdx/info There is also a number of photos showing the complete disassembly of the Skywave in the photos section of that group. What set this little radio apart from the competition is that it is the first radio to use the new Silicon Labs Si 4736 DSP chip, which offers the best AM performance on a radio of this size to date. The FM tuner is clearly superior as is SW when measured against other radios this size. If you are into MW DXing, this is about the best radio for that in its size class I have ever seen, and even competes favorably against some larger portables. While it does delete LW, it offers AM, FM, SW, Air Band, and NOAA Weather in the smallest handiest package available. It is easy to use, has great audio, and comes with a set of C. Crane earbuds which are among the best out there. The quality of the build is superior and solid as well. It is easy to use and has several features I really like such as being able to toggle the display between frequency and time, or, you can select frequency or time for the default display. While there is an optional AC Adapter, you can also recharge the radio (if you use NiMH batteries) through a USB port on a computer. It does not come with a USB cable for this purpose, however. AM,FM,Air, and Weather are not affected (at least as far as I can tell) when you are using the radio off of AC Adapter or Computer USB power. But, you will get some hash on shortwave, so it is best to use shortwave on batteries. The antenna is a wimpy 16" , but does an excellent job with FM, and surprisingly good on Shortwave. This is not simply another Chinese radio which has been rebadged for sale in the USA. This radio was also specifically designed for C. Crane, as evidenced by the photos of the internal printed circuit boards showing the C. Crane logo. It is manufactured for C. Crane by Redsun, and there are no derivatives or copies out there. There are a few things I did not like about the radio. First, the backlit display cannot be made to stay on full time. It has a ten second timer which allows the light to come on when you press a button or tune the tuning wheel, but it will always shut off after 10 seconds. Secondly, I had to press harder than I would like for all the key presses to register. Sometimes I would hear the key click, but the key function would not activate, so I had to press it again, harder. Lastly, at this price point the radio is literally twice the cost of some comparable Tecsun offerings. Is it worth the added cost? I would say that the performance enhancements coming from the SI4736 DSP Chip do make it worth the cost, but that is something everyone will have to decide for themselves. If you are a fan of AM radio, this is about the best you are going to get in a travel radio in terms of reception quality, audio quality, and freedom from digital artificats.

Full Reviews