{"id":49872,"date":"2021-08-04T07:08:38","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T11:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=49872"},"modified":"2021-08-04T07:09:04","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T11:09:04","slug":"jock-discovers-the-joys-of-ats-tuning-with-the-c-crane-cc-skywave-ssb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/jock-discovers-the-joys-of-ats-tuning-with-the-c-crane-cc-skywave-ssb\/","title":{"rendered":"Jock discovers the joys of ATS tuning with the C.Crane CC Skywave SSB"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott (KB2GOM), who shares the following guest post:<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Really cool trick the CCrane Skywave SSB will do — the “radio butler”?<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To paraphrase Ratty from Wind in the Willows: ” \u201cBelieve me, my young friend, there is nothing\u2013absolutely nothing\u2013half so much worth doing as simply messing about with radios.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is precisely what I was doing . . . messing, simply messing about with the CCrane Skywave SSB.<\/p>\n

Then I observed something. Just above the LIGHT button is some lettering: “ATS.” Not having taken notice of it before, I looked it up in the manual. It stands of Automatic Tuning System, and the manual says this about it:<\/p>\n

“This feature programs all receivable stations in the AM, FM, Air and Shortwave bands to memory buttons. To use ATS, select your desired band: AM, FM, Air or Shortwave, and press and hold the ATS button for two seconds. The CCrane Skywave SSB will scan the entire band and automatically set all available stations in sequence 1-20. If more than stations are available, then the remaining stations will be preset to the next memory page, and so on.”<\/p>\n

So I tried it; I punched in a shortwave frequency — 9250 — and pressed and held the ATS button for two seconds. The Skywave then muted itself and went to the bottom of the shortwave bands — 2300 — and started silently scanning through all of the international shortwave bands, hopping from one shortwave band to the next. Occasionally it would stop and silently store a frequency. After a while it stopped, unmuted, and began playing the very first memory that it stored. I checked the other memories that were stored and — sonofagun! — there were stations stored in each memory. Some of them were really faint, and I had to mess with single sideband and bandwidths to make them fully copyable, but they were there, automatically scanned and stored by the CCrane Skywave SSB. Obviously, you might want to repeat the ATS scan as shortwave propagation changes, say, from day to night.<\/p>\n

Well, I thought, would it do it also for Air frequencies? Short answer: it certainly will. And it will do the same for AM, FM, and — get this — if you put the Skywave SSB in single sideband mode, it will scan the ham bands, automatically changing sidebands appropriately as it hops from ham band to ham band. Note: when you check the memories stored during an ATS ham band search, you may not find anything there, simply because ham transmissions come and go much more often than international broadcasters.<\/p>\n

There is one downside to the ATS function. When the Skywave scans and stores stations, it does so starting at Page 1, Memory 1 of the memory system . . . always. So, if you scan the Shortwave frequencies and store frequencies they will be stored starting at Page 1, Memory 1, wiping out anything that you have already stored there. If you then use ATS on the Air band, it will then write over whatever you stored from the Shortwave frequencies. I wish there were a way for the user to designate at which page in the memory system ATS will begin storing frequencies so that the information stored starting at Page 1, Memory 1 is not constantly overwritten.<\/p>\n

However, there is another trick the Skywave will do: if you have used ATS to scan and store Air frequencies in Page 1 of the memory system (which it does automatically), you can then press and hold the UP and DOWN buttons at the same time, the Skywave will then scan through the Air frequencies that are stored there. Further, there is a squelch function on the Skywave that works only on the Air frequencies. So, with a little persuasion (very little), the CCrane Skywave turns itself into a civilian air scanner.<\/p>\n

The ATS function on the CCrane Skywave SSB is a bit like having a radio butler: “I say, Jeeves, find me what’s on the air this evening.” A short while later, Jeeves reports back: “Here you are, sir, I found 10 shortwave stations you might like to listen to.”<\/p>\n

Frankly, I don’t know if other modern shortwave portable radios offer a similar function, but if you have a CCrane Skywave SSB, give the ATS function a try; it’s pretty slick.<\/p>\n

— Jock Elliott, KB2GOM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott (KB2GOM), who shares the following guest post: Really cool trick the CCrane Skywave SSB will do — the “radio butler”? To paraphrase Ratty from Wind in the Willows: ” \u201cBelieve me, my young friend, there is nothing\u2013absolutely nothing\u2013half so much worth doing as simply messing about with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[373,3781,3194,545,627,3,43],"tags":[9390,190,6398,6397,9391,9323],"class_list":["post-49872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-am","category-fm","category-guest-posts","category-ham-radio","category-how-to","category-news","category-shortwave-radio","tag-ats","tag-ccrane","tag-c-crane-cc-skywave-ssb","tag-cc-skywave-ssb","tag-cc-skywave-ssb-ats","tag-jock-elliott-kb2gom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-cYo","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49966,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/c-crane-cc-skywave-ssb-jock-adds-a-correction-addendum-to-his-guest-post-about-ats-tuning\/","url_meta":{"origin":49872,"position":0},"title":"C.Crane CC Skywave SSB: Jock adds a correction\/addendum to his guest post about ATS tuning","author":"Thomas","date":"August 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott (KB2GOM), who shares the following guest post: I made a mistake, but it\u2019s good news for CCrane Skywave SSB owners. Recently, I published a guest post for the SWLing Post in which I wrote enthusiastically about the ATS feature on the CCrane\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/CCrane-CC-Skywave-SSB-travel-radio-dial.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/CCrane-CC-Skywave-SSB-travel-radio-dial.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/CCrane-CC-Skywave-SSB-travel-radio-dial.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/CCrane-CC-Skywave-SSB-travel-radio-dial.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":54841,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/checking-out-the-new-c-crane-cc-skywave-ssb-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":49872,"position":1},"title":"Checking out the new C.Crane CC Skywave SSB 2","author":"Jock Elliott","date":"November 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM Folks who are regular readers of my posts here have already figured out that I am a big fan of the CCrane Skywave SSB. It is easily the most versatile radio I own, receiving AM (medium wave), FM, shortwave, HF single sideband, NOAA weather stations with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ham Radio"","block_context":{"text":"Ham Radio","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/ham-radio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CCrane-Skywave-SSB-2-001-1-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CCrane-Skywave-SSB-2-001-1-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CCrane-Skywave-SSB-2-001-1-1024x683.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":57812,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/ccranes-new-c-crane-cc-skywave-2-and-the-ooda-loop\/","url_meta":{"origin":49872,"position":2},"title":"CCrane\u2019s new C. Crane CC Skywave 2 . . . and the OODA loop","author":"Jock Elliott","date":"September 22, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM A software glitch at a power station, a tree branch rubbing against a transformer, a geophysical incident, a weather event, even a civil society misadventure . . . It doesn\u2019t take much for things to rapidly go to blazes. So what do you need when Really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AM"","block_context":{"text":"AM","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/am\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/01_-_Hero__76717-1024x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/01_-_Hero__76717-1024x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/01_-_Hero__76717-1024x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":55946,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/the-ccrane-skywave-ssb-2-and-long-wire-antennas\/","url_meta":{"origin":49872,"position":3},"title":"The CCrane Skywave SSB 2 and long wire antennas","author":"Jock Elliott","date":"February 22, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM Frequently when people write about attaching a long wire to a portable shortwave receiver, readers will comment that you need to worry about desensitizing or overloading the receiver or ever harming the front end of the receiver. Clearly that can be a concern. But recently I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antennas"","block_context":{"text":"Antennas","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/antennas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Skywave-SSB2-001-1024x768-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Skywave-SSB2-001-1024x768-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Skywave-SSB2-001-1024x768-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Skywave-SSB2-001-1024x768-2.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":52415,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/guest-post-everyone-should-have-a-crisis-radio\/","url_meta":{"origin":49872,"position":4},"title":"Guest Post: Everyone should have a “Crisis Radio”","author":"Thomas","date":"April 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post\u00a0contributor,\u00a0Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post: The Crisis Radio By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM Sooner or later, it will happen to you. What\u2019s \u2018it\u2019? Short answer: a crisis. It could be as simple as you wake in the morning to find the power is out;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AM"","block_context":{"text":"AM","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/am\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CC-Skywave-SSB-Midwinter-Antarctica-Broadcast.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CC-Skywave-SSB-Midwinter-Antarctica-Broadcast.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CC-Skywave-SSB-Midwinter-Antarctica-Broadcast.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CC-Skywave-SSB-Midwinter-Antarctica-Broadcast.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":50310,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/guest-post-a-horizontal-dxer-explores-the-cc-skywave-ssb-and-pl-880\/","url_meta":{"origin":49872,"position":5},"title":"Guest Post: A “Horizontal DXer” explores the CC Skywave SSB and PL-880","author":"Thomas","date":"September 23, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to\u00a0SWLing Post\u00a0contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post: Confessions of a horizontal DXer and some initial impressions of the Tecsun PL-880 by Jock Elliott Back in the day when I wrote for Passport To World Band Radio, one of my favorite things to do, while my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Guest Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Guest Posts","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/guest-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/G12-misc-and-radios-005-001-scaled-e1632389819240.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/G12-misc-and-radios-005-001-scaled-e1632389819240.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/G12-misc-and-radios-005-001-scaled-e1632389819240.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/G12-misc-and-radios-005-001-scaled-e1632389819240.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/G12-misc-and-radios-005-001-scaled-e1632389819240.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}