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Reviews For: Cushcraft A3WS 12/17

Category: Antennas: HF: Yagi, Quad, Rotary dipole, LPDA

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft A3WS 12/17
Reviews: 16MSRP: 369.99
Description:
12/17M warc band 3ele. Yagi
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cushcraftamateur.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00164.5
K6KBE Rating: 2023-09-02
Instructions and QC need help Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
OK, you can not really read the fuzzy printed instructions not the one in the box or ob down loaded from their site. Even my 60 year old son's had problems. On top of that the text was terrible in repeating instructions that overlap?????

!. None of the parts are marked so you have to measure and mark each one then mark them for which element?????
2. Two parts that should have be sloted were NOT. Trip to the shop.

OK Now it is up and the match is good and performance is as expected. Took the boys 3 days to really get it, fixed, figured out, and erected.

Cheers, with caution

WB9OTX Rating: 2018-06-06
All around it is great Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I ordered the antenna from DX Engineering and it arrived in just 3 days. It took only about one hour to assemble and all the parts were included. It was mounted under a 3 element tri-band at 35 foot. The SWR on 17 was 1.1 and 12 was just slightly higher. I use it to work mostly FT8 at 25 watts. I notice I am working Europe when others are not. 12 meters has not been open very often but I have managed to work several stations with very good reports. It may have worked even better if I could have mounted it above the tri-bander but it was too hard to fish it up through the tri-bander that was already mounted. Before I was using a 1/4 wave vertical with 20 radials. I find at least a 3 S unit or more gain over the vertical. I am very satisfied with the quality and performance of this antenna.
K7NNV Rating: 2017-05-14
Most likely will be a good antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased this antenna from HRO and today I started the assembly. After laying out all the parts I opened the instruction manual and the first thing that was noticeable was that is was a very poor copy. The section on the element assembly was virtually unreadable. The second thing was the screw holes for the fiberglass spacer for the driven element did not line up.
I went to the Cushcraft site and downloaded another manual but it was identical to the one that came with the antenna.
I sent off a request to Cushcraft for a readable manual or at least a description of the measurements.
In the mean time I searched the internet for a readable copy and stumbled on this site:
http://www.cushcraftamateur.com/pdffiles/951370.pdf
As of today (5-14-17) the site was still good and I was able to download a pdf (very readable) copy of the manual.
KG5ABW Rating: 2016-09-23
KG5ABW Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Very directional. Reliable, bust thru pile ups easily.

Questions: email me from my qrz.com page.
N6WIN Rating: 2011-10-19
Excellent Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is a great antenna for the WARC bands. I installed this over my F12 C31XR. I added the 30m kit. I am impressed with it's ease of assembly, cost, and performance.
G0HVQ Rating: 2011-09-10
Great performance Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Bought this 2nd/3rd/4th hand off a fellow ham about 2 years ago and just got round to putting it up. It'd been well used and was a bit scruffy but looked intact. Put it together as per the instructions and got perfect flat SWR on 12m and 17m.

Can only get it up fairly low at the moment (25ft) but already it beats my trusty vertical by 2-3 S points on 17m, and am regularly working DX such as JA and W6/7 even when the band seems quiet. Have struggled to break a few pile-ups though. But 12m, wow - condx haven't been that good, but first day it opened this fall (in Sept 2011) I generated a great pile-up and got called by several JAs, HL, VK, BU, T6. Guess the low height is affecting it less at this shorter wavelength. And last night had a great opening to north/central/south america.

Can only think that putting it up a bit higher would make it work even better. Thoroughly satisfied with this antenna.
KG8DP Rating: 2008-12-05
Pefrect Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
installed in the summer of 2008. bands came up and cannot beat it. if you like 17/12 this is it. no 30m here. Mark KG8DP

flat swr. get the antenna
KC0CF Rating: 2006-11-14
Easy set up nice antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I upgraded from a rotatable dipole cut for 17 meters, to this A3WS light weight dual band trapped antenna. I bought it used for under $200.00. Assembly took less than 1 hour with no one helping me, easy to assemble. I realized a flat swr as measured my from MFJ 259, installation on a 50 ft. tower took me only 20 minutes. This antenna was by far the easiest antenna I have ever worked with, no measuring, and I see an increase of at least 3 to as much as 5 s units more signal at my s meter. My 1st contact was a Japan station, over s-9 signal, I had never seen a s-9 signal from my dipole from Japan before on 17 meters, so to me this antenna is quite a step up from what I had.
I must say that I am happy with the antenna, but must admit I just don't know how Cushcraft gets so much money for it. ($459.00 Retail?) Not a lot of alluminum there for that much cash.

F6GNZ Rating: 2004-11-09
Poor trap design! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Antenna worked fine (with 10 MHz add-on) for 3 years, then swr was "jumping" on 24 MHz. Opened 24 Mhz traps and was surprised by a poor mechanical/electrical design: contacts to aluminium tubings made by screws without nuts (check how Hofi/Fritzel does it!), closelly wound coils with turns touching each other, poor hose clamps...
Would have NEVER bought this antenna if I knew this before. Besides, due to interraction with a 40-meter XM402 and 20-meter monobander on the same 12-feet mast, intend to replace this antenna and 20-meter beam with the 4-el SteppIR beam, and have40 to 10 meter operation with just two antennas.
KC0GOX Rating: 2004-08-28
Performs as advertised Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This beam was not a new purchase by me but fell in the "previously enjoyed" category. However, the previous owner had taken good care of it and also spoke highly of its preformance.
For my part, I found that the antenna assembled easily and quickly. For those who do not like traps and hose clamps,you better look elsewhere. I can state from personal experience that neither of these construction techniques have ever caused me any notable problems.
As for performance, the rating says it all. This beam has flat swr, decent front to back , and outstanding front to side. In short, it performs just as you would expect a 3 element beam to perform. It is stacked about nine feet above my A3S tribander, and works great. It sure is nice having a directional antenna on my favorite WARC bands!
73,
Chris