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Reviews For: Cushcraft AP8A

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft AP8A
	Reviews: 12	MSRP:
	Description: Multiband Trapped Vertical
	Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cushcraftamateur.com
# last 180 days	Avg. Rating last 180 days	Total reviews	Avg. overall rating
0	0	12	3.3

G4UGD	Rating:	2024-03-29
Great antenna for portable and home			Time Owned: more than 12 months.
What a great 8 band antenna ,lucky enough to find a nearly new little used one in 2023,cleaned it up,cut the correct radials as per the manual and with a little adjustment here and there,managed to get a low swr on all bands,it should be guyed as others have said. like the other early cushcraft antennas like the R5 and R7 it works well,handles power without a problem, certainly recommend it. if one turns up ,clean it up,and you should be good to go,very easy to repair if ever needed,plenty of good advice out there on restoring these eary cushcraft classic designs

WB8CPY	Rating:	2019-04-18
I like this antenna			Time Owned: more than 12 months.
With the few bad comments on this antenna, I thought I would add a few positive words. I have owned my Cushcraft AP8A since 2005 when I purchased in new from AES. Erected immediately with many buried radials (with electric fence wire into a DX Engineering Radial Plate) with the help of N4ACT, I have worked many countries and all over the U.S. Due to lot/XYL restrictions, this is my only HF antenna. I use it with a Yaesu FT-897 (with automatic tuner) and Kenwood TS-530S with AT-230 tuner; all 100 watts, mostly CW on 80-10m. I have absolutely no complaints with this antenna. Every year or so, I take it down, use Armor All on all the traps, and they appear to be intact. Recently, I replaced all the radials and decided to clean up/use dielectric grease on all the contacts. This lowered the SWR a lot. I live in a very windy area and it has survived 65+ mph winds; has a slight bend but that doesn’t affect its operation. I think it is solidly built and has no rust after these 15 years. I really like this antenna and am very satisfied with it.

KC7JNJ	Rating:	2012-06-21
I love this antenna			Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have used this antenna for many years as a portable antenna. I ground mount it with a radial kit I built. It is laid out to where it only takes a few mins to have it on the air. I have used it for field days and I have have mountain topped with it. I have used it all over. With it we have made 1000s of contacts all over the world. It has never failed me. I have owned it coming up on 20 years. And I would love to have another one.

AI4WM	Rating:	2010-01-25
Nice antenna for a small yard			Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I have a small yard and can not get the wire antenna I would like installed nor could it ever be high enough. After reading the late Jerry Sevick's work on the short vertical antenna I decided to look for a multiband vertical. AP8A when I found one at a price I wanted to pay. Installation was a breeze and setting the sections to the resonant band was quite easy. I found 10 through 20 nearly flat across the band with all being 1.7:1 VSWR at the fringes and better (most 1:1.2 or 1:1) the nearer to my chosen center frequency. 40M gets at bit worse near the band ends, near 2.0:1, but it is not designed to be flat across 40. The 80M BW is rated at 100kHz, but I found it closer to 200 and easily matched with my FC-902 across the band (efficiency not calculated). Antenna quality is no worse or no better than any other ham antenna I have seen or used. All are over priced poor quality from new compared to a commercial antenna and none have decent connectors like Ns to keep water out. Nor can the antenna connector be changed. I will give Cushcraft one good point above Hustler, no coax pigtail is needed or extra adapter purchase needed to connect the antenna to its transmission line. Mine is installed at ground level with 4 ground rods connected to the base with 4, 1-inch copper straps and the whole works connected to 48 radials cut as long as I could fit in the yard installed on top of the grass which eventually covered them. So far this antenna has surpassed my expectations of it with more contacts to Europe in less than a year than I made with my dipole in over 3 years. I have not experienced problems with VSWR varying in winds or rain. The antenna has held up fine in high winds and rain although like most of my antennae it will be removed if there is a hurricane headed my way. This antenna is simple to remove before the storm and reinstall after. To sum it all up if you have a small area to install an antenna and you can put down some radials and find a good AP8A for a reasonable price this may be teh antenna for you. IF it weren't for the quality of ham antennas it's probably get a 5. Things to look for in buying a used antenna such as this one is the quality of the heat shrink seal over the trap coils, the integrity of the plastic caps on the tuning capacitors, any evidence the previous owner had the trap(s) apart or tried re-adjusting them. Any deterioration of the heat shrink, caps or evidence of adjusting are good reasons not to get any used trap vertical.

K5MO	Rating:	2008-04-28
Typical performance for vertical			Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I had mine in the woods here in NC for 7 yrs with no problems. It was unguyed and I had no mechanical issues. Performance was on a par with most reduced height verticals, but I worked a fair amount of DX with it. I DID have a lot of radials...probably in the 60-80 count range. Like ANY vertical, the quality of the performance depends on the radial plane you present. As far as bandwidth goes, again, it's no better or worse than say, a 14AVQ or any other smallish vertical. It was fascinating to watch the 2:1 bandwidth shrink as I added radials. For short verticals, increased bandwidth means lowered Q, which means loss. If the bandwidth is narrow , it's (in THIS situation) likely a GOOD thing, and means your antenna and ground system is working as well as can be. I ran upwards of 700 watts PEP from time to time, with no ill effect. I did NOT try and run this level of power with the antenna off resonance (as in through a tuner) and never experienced a breakdown. Never had a water or moisture problem either . I like my 4 element yagi better, but for someone with limited space, and only an afternoon to devote to installation, this is a good value... 8 bands on one coax.

KA3TKZ	Rating:	2007-09-04
Very Good Vertical			Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had this antenna in use for over 10 years, with and without radials. The antenna is mounted on pvc pipe 10 feet off the ground with no radials. I have destroyed pileups on the first call many times. The antenna holds up to 1500 watts with NO, NO problems! I have no complaints with this vertical.

K7UNZ	Rating:	2005-10-06
Not the best in the West			Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I too found the only redeeming quality to this antenna was it's feedpoint base section. After several months of poor to fair operation, I returned to Butternut. However, the AP-8 lower section remains, as it was a perfect fit for the Butternut HF-9V, and eliminated the one weakness I always disliked about the Butternuts. So, I now have a Butternut that has a coax fitting at the feed point instead of the stock screws/coil arrangement. Works fine, and this arrangement has been perking along for a bit over 10 years. Best of both worlds! Had used several Cushcraft antennas prior to the AP-8, and still have their WARC bands only model in the garage. However, the AP-8 was such a downer, I went back to Butternut, and have been a happy fellah ever since. Oh yeah, as already mentioned, it did make an excellent wind direction indicator when it was up! Jim/k7unz

K2BK	Rating:	2005-10-06
A low point in Cushcraft's efforts !!			Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This replacement to the fine and robust AV3-4-5 series of verticals is a limp effort at best. The trap parts are tiny, and the coils are covered in heat shrink wrap. I smoked mine at 400 watts RTTY - replaced the damaged trap and the antenna broke in a mild wind storm. I used the base section (same as the AV5 - VERY strong) to build a monoband vertical with parts left over from the damaged AP8A. Paul - K2BK

OK1RR	Rating:	2004-09-08
Flimsy			Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The traps are very flimsy. They stated out that AP8A is rated for 2 KW. HA HA HA! Burned out with 700 watts. Within years all traps fried out, both capacitors and inductors. Noted also narrow bandwidth. I would appreciate detailed trap description with L/C data for my own heavier design.

N3HSH	Rating:	2002-07-12
Average Performer. Flimsy Construction. Narrow Bandwidth.			Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This antenna is flimsy and therefore must be guyed well to withstand any type of wind. One of the traps was out of resonance from the factory and I had to call tech support to resovle the problem (which they quickly did). The usuable bandwidth is very narrow on all bands unless you use a tuner. I replaced this antenna with a GAP Titan and find the GAP to perform much better and be better constructed with a much greater usuable bandwidth.

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Category:

Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

Product:

Cushcraft AP8A

Summary:

Rating:	Time Owned:
Great! Good OK Needs Help Poor Awful!	0 - 3 Months 3 - 6 Months 6 - 12 Months More than 12 Months

Remarks:

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