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You can
write your own review of the Cushcraft MA5B Mini Beam.
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KK8ZZ
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 1, 2010 17:34
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Just keeps on working
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Had one up for a couple of years then replaced it. New setup required a smaller beam, and I went right back to a MA5B... neighbor-friendly, compact, efficient, easy to tune... one of the best bargains in ham radio antennas. Available used for around $225-$250.
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KC2HZW
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 1, 2010 17:11
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Works on 6M Too!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have a small roof tower and I can only keep one beam up at a time. During Es season, I have a 5 element beam up for 6M, HF is lousy in the summer anyway. During a large Winter Es opening, I decided to try the MA5B and see if it works. It does! I got S9 signal reports on 100 watts. I have to assume that the 12 Meter dipole portion of the beam is working as a multiple. I wouldn't go crazy running power and it's not real wide banded. I got a 1.5:1 SWR at 50.125 and about a 2.0:1 at 50.180. Good enough for off season.
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N0MUD
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 29, 2009 18:47
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Excellent Antenna
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Please see my Nov 20th, 2008 notes, nothing has changed. The antenna is still operating as it is supposed too. It has been up in the air since last year and I have had NO problems at all. Like my last blog said I have a choice of an Cushcraft A-3 or the MA5B. The A-3 has more noise and the MA5B has almost no noise, so it just depends on which antenna I want to us. If you are still trying to deside which one then go with the MA5B and get a RS rotor. Mine is only 30 feet high on a American Standard tower. Take your time putting it together, there is NO need to rush as it is very easy to put together. As I said I put my together inside the house and the finishing touches outside and then lifted it up on top of my garage and the tower. Have fun and enjoy your new beam.
Mike, NØmud
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KC2HZW
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 29, 2009 18:02
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5 Years - Still Going Strong
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Living on a small city lot, this antenna offers 5 bands in a small footprint. Make no mistake, what it lacks in size it makes up in performance. Compared to a dipole or a vertical, this antenna offers modest forward gain, reasonable f/b and very good side rejection. If we compare its performance to a dipole, you will likely notice little difference until the low angle DX comes in. In my experience it is not uncommon to see a 3 S unit difference! And it is quieter than my dipole too!
Some quirky things about this antenna. It is not the easiest to assemble. To work well it requires patience and care during assembly. There are a lot of parts to "eyeball" to get everything lined up right. Due to the weight of the elements, I found it necessary to install a pair of stainless steel machine screws through the boom to keep the elements in line. (The stainless hose clamps don't do the job.) It is a bit narrow banded on 20 but if you adjust the antenna for the middle of the band your atu should handle it on CW and SSB.
To date I haven't had any problems with the traps. I rarely run a KW through them but when I have it wasn't a problem. It has handled 500 Watts all day during contests without any trouble. Rain doesn't cause any SWR problems. I had it on a tv rotor for a while and it will definitely windmill. Now it is on a Yaesu G-800 and in 50 MPH winds it doesn't budge.
It won't give you the performance of a monobander or even a large trapped yagi like the A4S but if you want a beam and don't have much space, the MA5B is the way to go!
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M0TFO
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 29, 2009 03:49
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24 month review
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Ok now I have owned and used the CushCraft MA5B for about 24 months,thought I would add my own short review.
Most of this is covered within other reviews as the MA5B has inherent issues,first the build quality is OK,not great! the Jubilee clips are a non-starter to begin with,Don't even attempt to use the ones that are supplied with the antenna, get yourself some good quality ones from the outset.I constructed the antenna on my own in around 2.5hrs,this included spaying all the joints with spray grease and fixing it on top of my tennamast, greasing the screws heads on the black-box,and following most of the tips in the following reviews,One thing I would say "Don't use a light weight rotator" I killed two within 7 months and this was a right pain. Pay that extra and go for good brand and maybe a little over kill for the size of the antenna.
I'm not going to give spec for the antenna, as this can be found almost anywhere, I constructed the MA5B as per manual down to the nearest millimeter for the voice portion of the bands, I was prepared to make adjustments ,but the swr was spot-on within all bands, in fact it was better than the antenna spec.
It was a shame that the cheap light weight rotators had given up, as the antenna would of stayed in the air for 24 months without any problems, I think this maybe down to the design of the antenna as it has a tendency to "Windmill" in high winds,this is also covered in other reviews found here and how to reduce it. Forget the video's on u-tube comparing this antenna with a G5RV this is like comparing apples and pears. This antenna does work great and my logbook confirms that, any mini beam will be a compromise,but would highly recommend this antenna for people with small backyards. Read all the reviews to save you time and money six months down the line, this little antenna will serve you well and last many years. There are a few negative reviews but please do remember this antenna is not a StepIR,the only thing I would of done 24 months ago, was Buy two.My MA5B has survived at least 1kw and the traps have not died, but would not recommend prolonged power above 500 watts, it will be interesting how easy it will be to obtain parts for this antenna now MFJ have taken over CushCraft. So to sum I would give this antenna a 5 star for performance and a 4 star for build quality. 73 Rob M0TFO
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N4BAF
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Rating: 4/5
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Oct 26, 2009 17:46
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Update on Antenna
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I received a lot of feedback from my previous update so it motivated me to climb the tower and remove the black box. I found a lot of the coax ground connections inside the box wasn't properly grounded. I fired up the soldiering iron and re soldered the connections. Right now the antenna is receiving great again, I'm off tomorrow so I'll test it out on the bands. Thanks all for your feed back. I'll be on BSK31 most of the day and will try to work Europe on 17m ssb.
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OH1LA
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 2, 2009 03:00
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5
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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In the last four months I have had a surprisingly easy to DX stations, in particular the 20m Band. The antenna is 45 feet. In addition, I have a Yaesu FL-2100Z is a power of about 600W. Rare DX stations work. I had been through a hard time easily pileup. At the log is 3D20CR, FT5GA, TO7RJ, XV3RRC, 3D2GM, T30GM, T2G, 4W6AL, 3DA0JK and many others around 600 DX-station, mainly in 20m band, but also in 17m, 15m and 12m bands. I am surprised MA5B's effectiveness. I had, after all the years 1985-2001 in the same altitude, the Hygain TH6DXX that was a good antenna, but the large rainbow. Thank you for a small and a good antenna Cushcraft.
View images QRZ.com.
73 de Pekka, OH1LA
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N3JON
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 11, 2009 11:14
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How to repair a great antenna
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I bought a used MA5B Cushcraft beam.
All the bands had great SWR except 20 and 15 meters. I could not tune it to be resonant within band better then 5:1. My FT 990 auto tuner tuned it but something was wrong.
The previous owner had melted the plastic case of the matching network by heating the ferrite coils so they must have been running some power into the antenna (he said not more then 500 watts). I thought that was the source of the problem.
I called Cushcraft/Laird and they told me as of last week 8/1/09 MFJ will be building Cushcraft antennas. The MFJ support guy said it would be a few weeks before get parts and coming up to speed for support.
I tried replacing the matching network with a balun attached to element 1 (20, 15,10 meters) and it came close to 20 meters being resonant within band. I could get it in band with extending the 4 x-hats out another 8 inches. It had good SWR but it heard less then my G5RV JR and I got reports the G5RV had a stronger signal. It was also not directional. The Match network behaved the same as the balun, almost correctly, when only attached to the front (#1) element but both behaved really badly when attached to both elements.
It turned out to be the traps.
After I removed a screw from the our side of a driver element trap that had shown signs of arcing on the plastic on the end of the trap ( burned spots), and tighten a coil rivet inside a reflector trap, which was very short by driving a screw into it, I am now getting less then 1.5 on all bands and great performance and reports.
What did I learn?
1 The traps come apart. There are 2 plastic forms inside where thick solid aluminum wire (like ground wire) are riveted to the center tube on one end and on the other end go out the ends of the trap to a screw on the outside of the outer tube.
2 Each end of the trap has two screws one holding the thick aluminum coil wire to the outer tube and the second screw goes from the outer tube into the plastic coil form. This is where it arcs. This screw gets to close to shorting the outer tube to the center tube and can short the trap. This second screw has no electrical propose since it only goes into plastic. It could be removed. Cushcraft started putting in washers in later antennas to hold it further out. I made thick washers by making rings out of aluminum ground wire to hold the screw out further. You should do something to keep these 2 screws per trap screw from going in to far to avoid the arcing problem. This is a simple fix to prevent a big problem.
3 You can easily see if a trap is labeled backwards. By looking through the inner tube of the trap the shorter of the duel coils in a trap has it’s rivet half as far in as the longer coil. So the end of the trap with the short distance in rivet is the side that goes to the outside of the element.
This is a great antenna – not a tri-bander – but a good compromise.
If anyone has a spare trap that you like to sell let me know, and also feel free to email me if you have questions on these repairs.
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VE3BXB
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 2, 2009 18:18
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Very reliable Mini Beam with great performance
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I wish to say that I have owned this MA5B for about 3 years and using a light weight rotor is a big mistake. I had to replace my light weight type of rotor. The twisting of the antenna with high winds sure destroyed the old rotor. I would highly recommend the use of a stronger rotor rated at least 10 square feet or more. I know that the manual recommends the use of a light weight rotor but this is not a good idea.
One of the concerns that I have is that I have heard that some people are mentioning the limitation on the use of using no more than about 500 watts of power. I have never hooked up an amp with the beam and I am not sure what the real situation is regarding this power issue. It seems to me that the loading coils can be problem but I haven't heard of anyone actually melting the coils due to excessive power. I know in the manual that comes with the antenna, it states very clearly that the antenna is rated for 1000 watts but I don't think that I would take a chance on going more than say 500 watts.
Other than the power limitations and rotor issues being a subject of debate , I have to say that it performs very well.
I see that when I am using my G5RV wire antenna, there are times when I hear poorly when compared to the MA5B beam. It is amazing how much more you can hear and transmitt further compared to the wire antenna. I sure have no regrets purchasing this beam
For the money, it is a very hard antenna to beat.
If you are ever considering an antenna of this size, you won't regret it. Good job Cushrcraft
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G4YPV
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Rating: 5/5
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May 7, 2009 16:53
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Excellent so far
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Only had the beam in the air for one week so may be slightly premature but this beam has brought my IC756 PRO III to life. It's amazing what there is to be heard when I switch from the wire to the beam. Only problem is waiting for the council ordering me to remove it!
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