Bob and Sue in the first C. Crane Office, 1990.
Moving from San Francisco to rural Humboldt County, California in 1983 was not without a few oversights on my part. Due to poor radio reception my love for AM radio was met with a good deal of silence until the sun went down. It was only then that I could receive AM stations from several hundred miles away. I learned to adapt to the local earthquakes but not the absence of radio reception.
I went on a six month research project to improve the radio reception at my house until I finally found an AM antenna, the Select-A-Tenna. In the day time this antenna could receive a clear channel station from over 250 miles away. I was absolutely sure there were more radio-heads like me that wanted this antenna as much as life itself, so I wrote a letter to the address on the bottom of the antenna asking if I could sell them. The phone rang one day with the inventor and builder of this device. I garnered a somewhat exclusive distribution right to the West Coast for a capital cost of $350.00 so my wife and I began selling the Select-A-Tenna out of our home. We advertised the antenna on KGO Radio in San Francisco. At first, it did not go particularly well but we adjusted our advertisements and soon orders started coming in.
A plastic surgeon from L.A. was our very first customer. He heard the ad on KGO and called to order one. I was shocked when he asked me to put the antenna on a credit card. We weren’t set up to take credit cards so we had him mail us a check. Never considering failure we started shipping out hundreds of antennas with the bill enclosed hoping the honest talk show listeners would pay. Ninety-nine percent of those customer sent us a check! Word started spreading about the magic of the AM receiving antenna.
One unforgettable day in 1992 cars and RV’s lined our 500’ shared, one lane gravel road to the house making our neighbors less than thrilled. That’s when I turned to my wife and said ‘Sue, I think we need to get a store for the company”. We soon moved the business to downtown Fortuna.
The Original CC Radio
During this time, my wife and I both had full time jobs and 2 kids to raise. Our little company continued to grow and was starting to get out of hand, so we hired others to help us. With the dedication of a few good people we hired, the C. Crane Radio Division was born.
C. Crane continues the quest to improve reception with a selection of excellent long range radios and antennas. Our latest model, the CCRadio-2E is one of the best radios for AM and FM reception and it’s the most reliable we have built so far.
Bob Crane
I bought a “Super” Select-A-Tenna from Edmund Scientific about 1975. I was a student at UT-Austin and wanted good reception of a local AM station that primarily served the Dallas/Fort Worth area. It worked. I also used it to help avoid local interference to local and regional AM stations, one of which was owned by a friend about 100 miles to the South. I still have the “Super” Select-A-Tenna.
I love your company…..the service, the products, the kind employees, wonderful.
….First order in ’86 and have been to the office overlooking the Pacific twice . In these tough financial times you and the wonderful staff are succeeding at keeping us tuned in to fine values !
Thanks,
Mark S.
I would like to print this article my printer will not print it,so if possible e-mail it to me.By the ways I am an old coustomer of ccrane Thanks dale cox-my email dalelcox01@yahoo.com
Sent you an email with an attachment that should print.
It was during the scary runup to Y2K that I found I needed a good radio and ran across your ad somewhere. I bought the CC radio (spoke to Bob on the phone whilst making the order and he told me that this was one of the first CC Radio’s out of the first shipping container). I had just retired in ’99 and moved to the Pocono Mountains from Long Island and was homesick for mainstream radio stations based in NYC – WCBS, WABC, WOR, etc.) The CC brought them in like thunder, all the way from across NJ (120 miles). We don’t watch network television since 1970 (disgusting stuff!) so radio is our lifeline. Ended up with Six CC Radios – one in every room – run them on battery power (cleaner; easier on filters in power supply) and still have them all. Batteries last about six weeks per radio with constant use. I still have that first CC Radio and it still works fine! As do all the others, of course. Over the years I’ve bought your antenna boosters, long wire antennas and even nail clippers (!) Thanks for all the good stuff – keep it coming!
Doug Kenney
dkenney@ix.netcom.com