CrossRoads:
Nick, that just leads one to wonder why the wide pulse of SS High then? Which I would submit is the commanded high followed by the code wrapping around back the start of the void loop.
Yes I was wondering about that too, but I assumed it was too large to be called a glitch.
I should point out too that the order of operations in the setup is a bit suspect. Check out what SPI.begin does:
void SPIClass::begin() {
 // Set direction register for SCK and MOSI pin.
 // MISO pin automatically overrides to INPUT.
 // When the SS pin is set as OUTPUT, it can be used as
 // a general purpose output port (it doesn't influence
 // SPI operations).
 pinMode(SCK, OUTPUT);
 pinMode(MOSI, OUTPUT);
 pinMode(SS, OUTPUT);
Â
 digitalWrite(SCK, LOW);
 digitalWrite(MOSI, LOW);
 digitalWrite(SS, HIGH);
 // Warning: if the SS pin ever becomes a LOW INPUT then SPI
 // automatically switches to Slave, so the data direction of
 // the SS pin MUST be kept as OUTPUT.
 SPCR |= _BV(MSTR);
 SPCR |= _BV(SPE);
}
So the SPI.begin () overwrites some of the stuff you (maxmike) did before calling it. I can't really explain why SS becomes high during the transfer, except maybe the circuitry itself is responsible?