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Reviews For: Cushcraft A3S

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

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft A3S
Reviews: 87MSRP: 599
Description:
3 ELEMENT BEAM ON A 14' BOOM
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cushcraftamateur.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00874
VY1EI Rating: 2009-07-16
Solid design Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I purchased the A3S two years ago, and then added the 40 meter dipole kit a few months ago. This is my first Yagi.

Solid beam, no problems at all. All parts were in the kit. At 27 Ibs, I could handle it easily. Advice was to use a portable workbench to balance the Yagi when assembling it and that helped a lot.

The 40 meter kit is giving me much better reception than my dipole ever did.
AG4T Rating: 2009-06-02
Best Antenna Ever Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought my Cush Craft A-3 in 1979. At the time I was stationed at Zaragoza Air Base, Spain. This is one of the windyest places in the world, all the time. This antenna sustained heavy winds almost evfery day for three years. No problems. It also served me well during four years in Alaska with heavy snow and ice. It never failed. More recently Huricane Wilma hit Miami and the center fiber glass insulator in the driven element broke. That was an easy fix. The antenna has been in continued use for 30 years and I hope to use it for many more.
NF8S Rating: 2008-12-27
A3S SWR Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I purchased the A3S with the 40 meter kit, a year and 2 months ago. Assembly took some time but I wanted to make sure it was together correctly. The Antenna worked Great, the SWR was very good including 40 meters. About a month ago we had a blowing rain storm that turned to ice overnight. I'd been working the bands until early in the morning but did get back up to work a net. As soon as I keyed the mic on 40 meters the red lights came on and HI SWR flashed everywhere. I Checked the feed line with my MFJ-256 analyser and all the bands had SWR problems. After climbing the tower a couple of days later, and swapping feed line, I pulled the antenna down and started looking for the problem. I think I read every review on eHam and checked everything I could. I opened each trap up and check for arching, continuity and other problem, but outside of a very small amount of water in one trap everything checked out.
I contacted Cushcraft and received exceptional technical support from John David. We communicated via phone and email. John walked me through some checks for the traps, checked to make sure everything was installed correctly, and guidance for testing the antenna on the ground. At the end of the day, I removed the balun, rechecked all the measurements and checked the SWR with the Antenna pointing straight up "Vertical" with the Reflector about 4 ft above the ground. SWR was in the 1.2 to 1.5 range or less on 10, 15, and 20 meters. 40 meters varied, but was around 1.4 to 1.7 on the tower. It was around 2.1 on the ground.
My guess on what caused the problem would be ice in one of the traps. I did remove the balun and installed the antenna with a coax choke.
The Antenna outside of this problem has worked great, it went through a 65 mile per hour wind storm this summer without a problem. Its a great Antenna for the price and I've worked every continent in the world with it. Hats off to Cushcraft and their great customer support.
N0AH Rating: 2008-10-17
Overlooking typical QC Issues....a great antenna for 40M too!! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
The A3S with the 40M kit is an exceptional bargain. I have recently placed it on top of my 45 foot roof top tower and have been working into EU/PAC on gray-line propagation. On 40M and have had very good contacts with EU and all over the world on 20M. 10 and 15 meters are dead this cycle thus far so no real opportunities to check things out here.

This is my second A3S purchased in a year. The first one had no flaws. This one unfortunately had several pieces of inner-diameter tubing inside larger aluminum sections which had gotten stuck during transit. Burs inside these larger pieces caught the smaller pieces and kept tem from just falling out as they were being unpacked. Even the fiber glass center boom insulator got caught and had to be tapped out carefully using a broom handle.

Drilling was also an issue on the elements using the u-bolts to boom assemblies. The holes on the elements to be mounted using the u-bolts were off. They were too narrow and had to re-drilled. I also had one mounting bracket for the element guy rope which needed re-drilling.

Things happen and in reality, none of these short falls have hurt the performance of the antenna. John ant Cuchcraft has been good to work with on settling any issues. But if I were to take the A3S anywhere, I would want to build it first to make sure it is all working.

I am using a 1:1 balun which really gives me a lot more usable BW on 40M…..about 150KHz at 2.5:1 SWR. Minimum SWR at resonance is 1.3:1 SWR. Upgraded from my Yaesu FT450 to a FT800 rotor.

Of note, I am using ICE broadcast filters and have grounded my coax and station as well as I can. This has really shaven off a lot of ambient noise to whereas I can enjoy DX’ing on 40M in the suburbs. The 1430 a.m. towers are very close to me an over-load my radios with the antennas un-hooked on the entire hf spectrum. I hear nothing now with the antenna tuned and grounded.
OE6MDF Rating: 2007-11-14
A3S great! - ADD on KIT awful Time Owned: more than 12 months.
A3S: 5!
Works fine, I had no troubles with traps so far (except at my add on kit). Have this antenna now for 8 years on my tower.

A743: 1!
After got this kit from my dealer I mounted it on my A3S. Checked SWR on 40m -> ok it works.
First evening I was disappointed: Intermittant SWR faults on 40m, reception faults. Extremely low signals on 40m.
Ok next day, a cold and windy day, a friend helped me to disassemble the dipole again and check 40m traps.
We found out that the traps had very high resistance (no resonance) Both of them! The connection between the trap coil and the screw which connects both ends to the conduits was
done awful by Cushcraft. The lacquer which should protect the coil and connections against corrosion
was also between the screw and coil wire. Cushcraft made a nice insulation instead of good connection.
So we reworked both traps and both sides (means 4 connection, 3 of them where bad!).
Then assembled it back to my tower. No it works until now for almost 2 years without any
troubles. Come on, for this price of the kit here in EU, the quality is not acceptable.
WA0WAB Rating: 2007-07-17
Trap problems! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The A3S and A743 add on is a good small size antenna with adaquate performance. Problem is the traps are designed with a sheet metal screw that is supposed to provide a ground connection for the capacitive tubing portion of the resonant trap. With time this screw works loose, and coupled with "aluminum oxide" insulation the traps become non resonant! After taking the traps off 4-5 times over the last 15 years and cleaning and putting bigger sheet metal screws in the "blasted things".... I took all of them to a heliarc welding shop and had the traps spot welded. Too bad they are not manufactured this way. Reliablity of the antenna would be MUCH BETTER! If you buy one of these antennas "new", do this first thing. It will save you much misery!
K3LL Rating: 2007-03-19
Great Value and Support Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The A3S replaced my Hy-Gain 4BTV vertical which I had up for about 9 months.

During construction I discovered a small (but of course critical) piece of tubing was missing. A quick email to Cushcraft was all it took to have the replacement piece shipped to me via FedEx at Cushcraft's expense (Thanks John!)

Construction was enjoyable and a breeze.

While I was waiting for the part, I installed the antenna in a 2 element configuration- driven element and director. Made a few contacts, noteably HS1NRG and RW1ZA.

Many years ago I bought a Cushcraft ATB-34 (the grandfather of the A3S?). That antenna moved with me to 3 QTHs and traveled 1000's of miles with me and performed great at every location.
Looks like the A3S will perform just as well if not better.
MW0XMG Rating: 2006-10-27
Great Antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Bought the A3S about 3 years ago, it's mounted @ 12Mtrs high, pretty much maintinence free, living on the side of the Brecon Beacons National park we see plenty of rain here, no cracks on the plastic ends on the traps, it really has performed well and I'm very pleased.
KN0N Rating: 2006-10-27
Good antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought an A3 (pre-'S')in 1989. It has been disassembled and moved across county, stored outside under some trees for 5 years after a home remodel, and was recently reinstalled. Some of the u-bolts and mounting hardware were lost or corroded so I ordered the stainless steel kits from Cushcraft. The cost was about $54 shipped 3-day FedEx coast-coast and arrived about seven days after ordering. I had to leave a voicemail requesting the parts, but I got a call back from Cushcraft the next day to complete the order. At my dad's suggestion I had purchased stainless hose-clamps to replace the originals back in 89 so they were still in good shape.

The beam performs very well. Especially considering I have no tower at present and am using it on a 30 foot mast. Gain over my dipole at 75 feet looks to be around 6 db on the S-meter. I am very happy with the performance and durability of the A3. FYI I have never owned a linear so the power to unit has never been over 100 watts.
WA3OFR Rating: 2006-09-10
Great Value - Gets the Job Done! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Got to 280 countries with 100W and a vertical in the late 1980's...but wanted more punch (+ receive gain!) I've had this same A3S antenna in two QTHs - 10 years on a 10' garage mounted tower and the last 10+ years on a 50' crank up. No problems in either location through nasty wind and ice storms here in Mass. Never failed me, nothing ever broke. Assembled very easy ...as one other reviewer noted...alignment marks would help!! But I used Sharpie markers once all elements in place! Also, prior to assembling I did add a single stainless steel screw through each element to prevent it from spinning if the clamp were to come loose! Adding this feature would be my only suggestion to Cushcraft...I highly recommend this simple, cheap insurance!! A3S+100W has got me to 340 countries now...it can be done. Although a linear is starting to look good for these last 5 :-) I recommend it as a durable, cost effective TX/RX booster!! EXCELLENT! 73