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Reviews For: Cushcraft A270-10S

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

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft A270-10S
Reviews: 41MSRP: 100
Description:
10-ele Dual band Yagi (2m and 70cm)
with end-mounting and harness
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cushcraftamateur.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00414.3
NJ0F Rating: 2023-11-15
No QA. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Garbage. I had to re-drill holes and slot new boom end. Missing screws too. Complete failure out of the box. I don't know who Martin use to manufacture these but they are clueless. On top of this there are no quality control. I just assembled my last one for someone. Save your money and buy better quality from other vendors. This is Chinese quality but made here in the USA. If you are on a budget, build your own antenna. If you can afford it, buy M2, JK or other reputable antennas. Save yourself the agony. I used to love the pre-MFJ Cushcraft antennas. Assembled a bunch of them with no issues.
KN6WPU Rating: 2022-12-12
New member of the shorted cable club Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I had the same issue as WQ6N & N6JS. Super high SWR & a sad spiral on the Smith chart. One of the cables is shorted. I will try to get a new one next week, I hope I am going to have a happy end too.
N5JS Rating: 2022-03-24
Arrived with shorted cable in the phasing harness Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Upgrading the original rating from poor for poor factory quality control to good since it now seems okay at a ground level test using a replacement cable I built for the provided feedline harness.

On initial test I found no resonance on 2 meters and out of band resonance on 70 cm. I found the same problem as WQ6N: one of the RG58 feedline harness cables was shorted. I replaced it with an RG58 jumper I built of the same length and found reasonable SWR performance at ground level on both bands:
WQ6N Rating: 2021-06-19
Dealing with SWR on 2m Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just purchased one of these to reduce the numbers of antenna and get a little gain with the 4 elements. So far, I am not having much luck getting the SWR down below 2.51 on 2m. 70cm SWR looks ok at 1.6 (Measurements taken with the 2m element up. It got worse when I flipped the 2m element down as in the drawings). Then again, I am only inches above a 6ft chain link fence with 3 rows of barbwire on top. Guessing the boom is at 10ft.

The antenna is on a mini 8ft rooftop tower that is on the ground with a rotor and thrust bearing. I may also look into purchasing a 10ft of EMT to raise it a up little. I am trying to keep a low possible profile as possible (good neighbor).

I am not to happy with the T-splitter and phasing harness. I have purchased a duplexer (MFJ-916B) in hopes of getting a better SWR and performance.

I have a R8 and a dual band 2m/7cm vertical that are in the antenna's near field and I am pretty sure there is coupling even though they are behind the reflector element.

Currently my mobile JetStream JTBM270 is out performing the A270-10S. The JetStream dual band is not made to stay up for long periods and needs constant maintenance due to corrosion of the cheap materials.

Reading eHam reviews, appears others had phasing harness and T-splitter issues. I am determined to get this investment working and am open to discussion from others who have already gone down this road.

Edit 18Jun21 (Two Stars)
Well I believe I found the root of the problem. One of the two 32-1/2 harness center conductor was shorted to the shield.
This begs the question regarding MFJ and Quality control. I did a MFJ contact email with the request for replacement and we shall see how long they take to respond.
My luck of the draw....

Edit 06/19/21 (4 Stars)
I took the shorted cable length back to the store and demonstrated with a megger. They replaced the cable with a new segment. Put it all together and replaced the T with a MFJ-916B duplexer. The tests were awesome. 1.16 on 2m and a flat 1.0 on 70cm. Remounted on the rotor system and all is well. Journey complete.

Best 73, JohnF
NO9E Rating: 2018-05-23
Quality control issues Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Mine is a few years old. When matched separately, SWR on 70cm was low but > 1.7 on 2m caused by too short pipe for gamma match. With a longer pipe SWR on 2m becomes low. SWR is always worse with a harness.

Most likely my unit has a wrong harness and a wrong gamma piece for 2m. I can make it perfect by extending the pipe and using a duplexer instead of the harness.
N8FVJ Rating: 2018-05-22
Great Antenna- Bargain Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First, there is not a lot of dual band VHF/UHF yagi antennas for sale. Most are lower gain 3 foot boom with 3 elements.

The Cushcraft is a 6 foot long boom with 4 elements on each band. It is rated 10dB gain on both bands. I unpacked the antenna and all hardware was present. Assembly was easy and antenna construction/design is excellent.

I tuned the gamma match for 1.2 to 1 SWR on 2 meters (144.200mHz) and 1.1 to 1 SWR on 70cm (442.100mHz). So, no problems with a good SWR match.

The antenna is rated for 350 watts PEP. The antenna easily handles my 350 watt 2 meter amp & I run 50 watts on 70cm. Many antennas are only rated for 100-150 watts except log periodic types, but those antennas cost about $500+.

For $159 shipped the Cushcraft is a bargain.
VE1CZ Rating: 2017-07-27
A270-10S Time Owned: N.A.
Well here is my spin on this antenna.I bought one late last year and mounted it on a 20 foot pipe and am using it in the horizontal position mostly for 2 meter ssb and cw.I never used the so called phasing harness which in my opinion is not a true phasing harness.The 2 meter side of it works great for what it is at 20 feet(HOA)issues so I needed a low profile antenna.SWR is acceptable for the bottom of the band where I play at,not so great at the higher repeater end.I am feeding it with 50 feet of LMR 400.So is there anyone else who believes that the so called phasing harness is in fact not really a phasing harness? I plan on putting it on a small tower soon and will be using 2 separate feed lines(LMR 400,sounds acceptable to me.The reason for a rating of a 4 is due to the mis labeling the feed line as a phasing harness,by the way they use 50 ohm rg58 as the phasing harness.
KT4EP Rating: 2015-06-04
Excellent product bought in 1995 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought my A270-10S in early 1995 for $80 brand new. I mounted it on top my 52 foot tower, pointed towards a friend's repeater in Mississippi about 40 miles as the crow flies. I always had full scale on his VHF frequency. Straight out of the box settings per instructions - SWR @ 145.27 mhz was 5 watts/1.5 to 1 and 50 watts 2 to 1. UHF was 1 to 1 with 5 watts at 444.65 mhz. I fed the antenna with about 120 feet of RG8 coax. Figure there was loss in that distance. The antenna was on the tower from March of 1995 to the summer of 2010. When I took it down, it was in great shape; no significant corrosion, the parts in fine shape, the harness and connections were OK, and still had the same tuning settings. I put it in the attic for a year and finally took it down. I am going to remount it on a exterior mast, no rotor, for local UHF mainly. It has been a good product, I am not sure what has happened with it since Cushcraft was bought out. I also have the Cushcraft AR270 dual band vertical from the same time period. It has also been a great product.
KB5PQL Rating: 2014-07-08
Good antenna if you get the good version Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought two antennas and one works EXCELLENT and one works Just OK. The "Excellent" antenna has wonderful gain and works from 2m to MURS with FLAT SWR. On UHF, the antenna covers 70cm and GMRS with FLAT SWR! This is a great GMRS antenna too!
The "OK" antenna has good SWR on the ham bands only. It has a very sharp SWR pattern on 2m and 70cm and no GMRS coverage. The beam pattern is all over the place too. It's like some have reviewed here on eham where you can't tell the difference between the front or back. It appears like the two antennas have different holes drilled on the boom. Perhaps there was a version 1 and then a version 2? I hope cushcraft decided on version 2 because this antenna is great! I talked to a station 50 miles away while testing the antenna indoors on 2m SSB; the antenna was pointed straight up! Hope you get the "excellent" antenna for your setup.

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Earlier 5-star review posted by KB5PQL on 2005-06-14

I finally installed this antenna over the weekend after it was sitting in the radio room for 2 months and already this thing has impressed me. The antenna sits at about 30ft on the chimney and so far contacts of 150-200 miles away seem to be effortless (Houston,TX to Austin and Beyond). Before I installed this little antenna, the antenna was leaning up against a wall pointing straight up. I decided to try it anyway and answer a CQ from a station located about 50miles away. With less than 5watts I was about to make contact with the station without a problem. For the money this antenna is great. If you live in a HOA subdivision just tell 'em it's your new HDTV antenna ;)
KQ0J Rating: 2014-05-29
Great little beam for FM Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I had the good fortune to get one of these beams for no charge from another ham that had it up for a few years and then stored it away. Put it on the analyzer - it had great SWR across 2M and 70Cm. I mounted it just above the roof and it plays great - I can now access repeaters and have quality QSO's that I could not hear well on my omni that is up 5 feet higher. Sides have great rejection of 20+ db and the back has good rejection but not as much as the sides. The former owner had good success on 2M SSB mounted horizontally ( within limits of the gain of course). Gain on 440 is fantastic as well.