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Reviews For: Cushcraft LFA-6M4EL

Category: Antennas: VHF/UHF+ Directional (Yagi, quad, etc.)

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft LFA-6M4EL
Reviews: 1MSRP: 259.95
Description:
6 meter, 4 element loop fed antenna.
Product is in production
More Info: https://mfjenterprises.com/collections/cushcraft/products/lfa-6m4el
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0011
K9DR Rating: 2021-09-28
Electrically good, mechanically poor Time Owned: more than 12 months.
After reading the review for the 5 element version of this antenna and seeing similar problems with my 4 element Cushcraft LFA-6M4EL 4 element Yagi, I felt obligated to include my experiences. It seemed reasonably priced and plugging the published dimensions into EZNEC showed pretty good performance. I had a KPA1500 amplifier on order, so its power handling capability gave it a plus. Installed at about 50', it performed well during the 2020 May - September E-Skip season. Handled 1,500 Watts with no problem. Come the 2021 E-Skip season and I found the VSWR had jumped from about 1.1 to about 2.8 at 50.313 MHz. Lowest VSWR had moved up into the 52 MHz region. Now that I'm in my mid 70s, I paid my tower guy to bring the antenna down for repair. At first, I couldn't see anything wrong, but all of a sudden, I realized that one side of the second director and one side of the reflector were now shorter than their compliment on the opposite side of the boom. Getting out the tape measure, both were now 10.5 inches shorter than when installed. Just to be clear, the break on each element was 10.5 inches from the tip, not from the boom, where the bending moment would have been much greater. Yep, the winter winds had trimmed the element tips by that amount! Getting out my calipers, I measured the tubing thickness at about 0.025". Digging through my scrap aluminum, I found a couple of 3/8" tubing with 0.050 wall thickness, of adequate lengths and replaced the broken elements. Once fixed and back on the tower, it works well. However, I have its replacement from another company on order, because I anticipate the next winter wind session will trim another element or two.