|
New to Ham Radio?
My Profile
Community
Articles
Forums
News
Reviews
Friends Remembered
Speak Out
Strays
Survey Question
Operating
Contesting
DX Cluster Spots
Propagation
Resources
Calendar
Classifieds
Ham Exams
Ham Links
List Archives
News Articles
Product Reviews
QSL Managers
Site Info
eHam Help (FAQ)
Support the site
The eHam Team
Advertising Info
Vision Statement
About eHam.net
|
You can
write your own review of the CushCraft 26B2 Boomer.
|
K8TJ
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Aug 24, 2009 16:42
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
OUTSTANDING
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
|
Unbelievable antenna. First contact was on a repeater in St. Louis, MO... 500 miles away from my QTH. Hearing Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay all well over 220 miles away from my QTH here near Flint, MI. Mounted at 102'. Very narrow beamwidth but works just fantastic. Purchased it used for 50 bucks !
|
|
W5HG
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Jan 13, 2007 15:52
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Super Beams
|
Time owned: more than 12 months
|
|
I've had mine for about 16 years now. They hear very well. Sometimes I stay up late at night and give a call out to stations that are weak only to find out that they are 200+ miles away. You can get into Net Meetings from so far off that its hard to believe. The beam width is very narrow and sometimes hard to follow someone in a mobile when they get 50 to 75 miles out. I've had mine up at 80 feet with a Diamond dualband ground plane on top. When someone calls that is weak on my ground plane, I find out where they are and then put the beams on them , they come up like they were right here with me. I've never had a bit of problems yet. I imagine the coax is about time to go after all these years. Good money spent.... As with all these reviews...just my two cents. This is a great site and enjoy it very much.
|
|
AF4O
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Dec 25, 2004 09:43
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Nice Beams
|
Time owned: more than 12 months
|
|
Had these up since 1994. They are a superb antenna for long haul vertical work. Wish I had them higher in the air. I overdo my connections (tape, coax seal, clear acrylic) to keep water out and coat my joints with clear acrylic. The thing just keeps working. Sometimes wish they would go bad so I would have the motivation to raise the tower a bit. These are very directional thus attesting to their gain. I once heard some guys on WSJT JT44 doing moon bounce on this antennna when the moon was on the horizon. Im sure they were horizontally polarized while I was vertical.
|
|
KI4ECW
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Jul 31, 2004 22:30
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Buy One Today!!!
|
Time owned: 6 to 12 months
|
I've been using the 26B2 for about 6 months. I can work repeaters 125 miles away with only 25 watts and 250 miles away with 50 watts. If I can hear it, I can talk on it.
My QTH is the Cumberland Plateau as it begins eastern Tennessee. I cover ALL, that's right ALL, repeaters within 250 miles north, south, and west of my location -- from Louisville, KY to Birmingham, AL to Jackson, TN.
The rugged Smoky Mountains of southeastern TN block some of the signal eastward but I still get repeaters 125 miles in that direction with 50 watts.
I've talked ground wave FM simplex to Cincinnati, OH, the Florida panhandle, and into Arkansas and east Texas running 165 watts. If I hear 'em, I talk to 'em -- 350-400 miles away. This is NOT during band openings -- it's when I get ready to talk!
The front to back discrimination is exceptional. Also, the side to side ratio is great, too. You can pinpoint your signal and not worry about causing interference to other repeaters or bothering your other local hams.
The antenna is easily assembled in a couple of hours, well made, and has a 1.1/1.2:1 SWR across the entire 2 meter band.
The system is well made and recently survived 90 mph winds during very severe thunderstorms. (My dual band ground plane didn't!) Its also survived some pretty good snow and ice this past winter.
I have the 26B2 mounted on a 50 foot Rohn tower and use a heavy duty Archer TV rotor to turn it without any problem.
Don't waste your money on anything else -- buy the Cushcraft 26B2 boomer and run with the big boys!
|
|
KG4LFZ
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Mar 30, 2003 20:28
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
great ant.!!!!
|
Time owned: more than 12 months
|
I have had the ant. on the ground for a while, while my rotor was getting fixed. Got the tower up, and came in a worked a repeater about 80 miles away on 25 watts. Keyed up on a repeater freq. that was in southern TN, and can key it up with 75 watts. that a 170 mile trip!
Love this ant. I would recommend it for a serious FMer.
73
Ed K4XXX
|
|
WB5VNX
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Aug 26, 2002 19:24
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Great system!
|
Time owned: more than 12 months
|
This antenna system rocks! Although the version I have is some 10 years old, I had stored it in my garage that long before assembling it, there may have been some design changes that I’m unaware of in recent years.
The system went together well. Elements bolt on and you don’t have to worry about centering or spacing. I assembled on the ground – hoisting it up was a bear though. The use of tag lines and balancing on top of a guy was the only way I could manage it. 4 people helped me with the mounting. The end caps on the cross boom fell off about a week later, cracked from old age. Alignment of the two beams in a non-skew kind of way was difficult and it seems that I had to tighten the clamps excessively. A through hole at the stacking boom mount point would prevent this.
A major complaint is that Cushcraft uses some not readily available sized U bolts in their constructions. One of the cross boom to mast mount U bolts got some messed up threads about halfway down because I had to let loose of the assembly before I had both bolts in place since I was working alone on top of the tower. Not noticing this I ended up with a damaged U bolt that I eventually had to saw off and replace. Lucky for me a friend had left me a spare U bolt that just happened to fit. I’m currently in the process of ordering some spare ones from Cushcraft – the holes drilled in the mast mount plate don’t accommodate what is commonly available from many web suppliers. So a word of caution would be to be very careful how you treat the U bolts, mess one up without a spare and you’ll have to abort the installation.
SWR isn’t flat on the entire band. I’ve got it at 50’ right now and the SWR ranges from flat at one end of the band to 1.5 at the other. While on a test stand at 8’ I was getting 1.4 at the peak of an S curve shaped SWR curve. However now that it is up on top I’m not about to take it down and try to drop the dip down in the band.
Performance is pretty outstanding. With 50W I can work repeaters at 130 miles full quieting although s indications are just about zip. I’m feeding through 150’ of 9913 coax too. I sort of wish they would have used N connectors but I guess that is wishful thinking. Overall an excellent antenna and it beats the HyGain 214’s stacked I had previous hands down in performance.
|
|
If you have any questions, problems, or suggestions about Reviews,
please email your Reviews Manager.
|
|
|
