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Reviews For: Cushcraft R-8

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft R-8
Reviews: 105MSRP: 450 to $480
Description:
40-6m omnidirectional vertical antenna
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cushcraftamateur.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001054
KC2PUF Rating: 2007-05-30
Decent if put up right Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Nothing reallywrong with this one. Put together with care !! Put mine up in 2000 at one spot, moved in 2006 to roof, put back 50' from house in May 2007. Keep away from house and metal and it's very good. Worked Russia, Europe, better than my Dx-CC at 40' up. Slightly higher noise floor, but huge difference in signal in MOST conditions. Looks like a banana, but survied 80 mph winds.Would buy again. Never a problem in 7 years.
KC8GLQ Rating: 2007-03-12
Great Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I put this vertical up as per instructions. The R8 works better than I thought it would.

I get 300k(Wow) on 40m and 500k on 10m(manual says 1500 but I guess the trade off with 40m(150) is great,???). All other bands are covered w/< 2.1

Very easy to put up on an 8ft pole. I stood the antenna beside the 8ft pole, attached the mounting brackets to the pole at the bottom and slid the antenna up until I reached the top. I can take it down in a minute if needed. I didn't need to touch a thing. Works greats on receive and transmit.

I bought this used and it was in good shape. Took a week at night to clean up and 1 day to put up.

Instruction manual is great.

I guyed the antenna and pole. If you have high winds you should know you have to guy a 30ft vertical, duh.

A+++++

I don't understand a lot of the issues people are having with this great antenna, but I did see one issue, the female coax connector didn't make contact(center pin) with the Male connector, I figure a little to much soldier caused this. Pinched it back to its original form and achived success, Before I did this the antenna had a 10:1 on all bands so maybe this is something to always check for....

Slim design, traps work
VE4BLB Rating: 2006-04-15
Unreliable and poor support Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had the R8 for four years now. The six meter SWR was always high but all other bands were within specs. However, at the end of the first Canadian winter, the 40 meter trap failed giving infinite SWR. It took 2 years to get a replacement and it was installed in the third year. This year, the 40 meter SWR is again infinite along with 17 meters. I don;t know what will fail next but I probably will go to another antenna.
VE4BLB Winnipeg
N1URE Rating: 2005-11-27
Good but guy it. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Assembly was easy. I put it together in my basement over a few nights. How anyone could find assembly impossible is beyond me. I mounted the antenna on a 3 ft roof tripod with a heavy iron pipe. You will need two or more people to put this up as the leverage is considerable. I did not use guy wires and as a result it has a very slight lean even though the mounting pipe is correct. The antenna has survived 50 mph winds with ice and snow for three years. Only a slight banana effect. If is was not such a pain to put up and down I would guy it to make it nice and straight. Performance is good on all bands. I had a Gap antenna and this is a much better performer. I would give a 5 if it had guy wires out of the box.
N5NJ Rating: 2005-10-17
Does the job! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have used several vertical antennas here in "urban sprawl" North Texas, and I am most impressed with this one.

It is top-heavy, and needs to be guyed. I rated it a 4 because of this. If Cushcraft were to include the guying kit as mandatory for the antenna, it would rate a 5.

I bought it second-hand, and the previous owner used "parachute cord" which is thin, very strong, and supposedly will hold up with UV. Works fine.

I took it down Saturday morning at the seller's QTH, took it apart and transported it to my home. It came apart in pieces short enough to fit inside my Chevy Malibu with the rear seat folded down.

I reassembled it and checked all the measurements. As I focus more on CW, I added a little to what Cuschcraft recommended for 40m. More on this later.

I then put it up on a 10' pipe, right next to my house, and checked the SWR. As expected - perfect on all bands, except on 40m, where I made it too long. It is resonant very low in the band, and I usually operate CW or RTTY so it should not be a problem. If I do go to phone, the SWR may be a problem.

I worked a bunch of stations in the JARTS RTTY contest with no trouble including some JA stations on 40m.

The retail price of this antenna seems high, but perhaps that is what it's now worth. Given that you can buy a Hustler 5BTV for less than $200, perhaps it's a bit overpriced. However, in my case, I don't have room for radials, and it seems to work great.
7Z1UG Rating: 2005-06-25
Works great -> With Guy Wires ! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Last week I assembled the R8 - within 4 hrs the antenna was ready to be installed on the roof. No parts missing. All fitted well. Instructions were clear but a picture which shows the complete antenna is missing in the Assembly Manual.

We installed the antenna on top of a 2" - 6m -G5 Steel Pipe. The clamps (to mount the antenna to the pipe) were a bit flumpsy - so I replaced them by more stronger stainless steel ones.

Now we had a 14.5m long piece to bring into the vertical position !! ( 6m pipe + 8.5m R8) - This is really not a 'one man show' - you need at least 2 more guys and 4 more hands to help you bringing up this beast.

Finally the R8 was standing - yes - but unfortunately not vertical. The pipe - were the R8 was mounted on - was 100% straight and vertical but the antenna on top looked like a banana. It was not possible to bring the R8 without any guy wires into a nice looking an totally straight position. So I left it for the time being becaus it was already dark and we have been tired.

The immediate tests of the R8 brought the following results:

1. All bands (except 6m - not tested) were according to the specs. All SWRs were < 1:1.7
Some bands - 40m and 20m gave no power refelction at all = 1:1.0 !! The 'worst' band was 18m - here the SWR was 1:1.7 .... So I have been more than satisfied with the initial results (no tuning after assembling) - the rest will do the automatic antenna tuner of my TS850SAT.

2. I agree fully with some previous reviews which mentioned that this antenna is sensitive with manmade noise. It is very very sensitive. I have some street lamps in front of my house and some powerlines and they are producing an extrem high noise level which could not be eliminated by the built-in noise blanker. It is more than annoying to have a noise level about s5 - s9 !! I have another GP on the roof - a Fritzel GPA 40 which is far less sensitive regarding man made noise. Also a horizontal dipole has been much better.

3. Signal reports with the R8 were all great. Reports less than 599 are more than seldom - even after asking for an exact s-meter report. Stations I hear, I can work. In comparison to my GPA40 groundplane the R8 is mostly between 1 and 3 s-units better.

4. Now we got some wind here in Riyadh - the R8 begun swinging like a drunken sailor. An still looks like a banana. I could not bear this view anymore and decided to take this monster down again. I called my helping hands and we got the 16.5m stick down again. Then we cut a teflon piece into a triangle, drilled a center hole ( 1" ) and a hole in each corner for the guy wires. We put this triangle just on the pipe below the lower trap. 3 guy ropes (polyester) on each corner and brought the antenna up again. After some adjustments the antenna stood straight and vertical like a broom stick. Nice view. I am a bit concerned about the last of the polyester ropes because of the heavy amount of ultra-violet rays here in Saudi Arabia. I was afraid to use stainless steel wire to guy the antenna because of possible negative effects. Certainly I will if it a try if the polyester ropes will be cut by wind or UV rays.

All in all this R8 is a good designed, well working DX antenna - a bit overpriced.
Assembling is not too difficult - but take care about some measurements mentioned in the manual !
Do not install this R8 without a guy wire system.

Cheers,
Manfred in Riyadh KSA
7Z1UG - DK2UG
K7LA Rating: 2005-03-27
Real World Performance Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This reviewer is not an expert in vertical antennas but would like to share with you all the performance of this antenna in the recent 2005 ARRL DX Phone Contest.

I operated on vacation from New Zealand at a friend's QTH as ZL/K7LA with the following results:

ZL/K7LA...517 Q's x 131 Mults = 203,181 claimed score, log filed.

The antenna was mast mounted with radials in the backyard, not even on the roof. TX power 100 watts. As verticals are a bit noisy I listened on a wire G5RV and TX on the Cushcraft with excellent results for the 13 hours I worked the contest.

Band conditions in the South Pacific were challenging but we had good results to North America on 40 and 20 meters, with a brief opening on 10.

Outside the contest I worked several Russian and Ukraine stations along with South Korea and most of Eastern Europe. The Russian stations said the signal was booming in.

The antenna exceeded my expectations and was trouble free during operating.

7 3 de ZL/K7LA Jim
www.qrz.com/k7la
SV2CGN Rating: 2005-02-20
OK for vertical. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I think I ought a review to this antenna. You see she was my first new big project as a new radio amateur in 2002 and I‘ve spent a lot of hours thinking about how to buy her, to install her, to raise her, to guy her etc. Well now after almost 2 years of operating barefoot with my Kenwood and this antenna I would like to post here my review. The R-8 was installed on the roof of my 4 story house (20m high clear sky) and guyed with kevlar rope to withstand the strong north wind that we often have here. Just like everything in real life she has some pros and some cons. Here there are:

Pros
VERY good material and construction. (don’t worry about anything)
VERY good SWR on all bands (just follow the very good instructions)
VERY good support from the headquarters (response to emails)
She really works like a vertical. She has a very low take off angle. If you hear a station you ‘ll work him.
You have 8 bands in one antenna.
She is very beautiful standing out there.

Cons
The raising of the antenna is certainly a two person hard work (especially if you are on the roof 20m high!)
The traps after two years of operation are prone to the water (SWR are changing for a week or so until the water drains out of the traps)
She really works like a vertical. She picks up almost everything.

So, you see the main problem with this antenna (and with me) is that she is working perfect for vertical. So if you hear a station you will certainly work him with 100W. But you see here is, also, the problem: IF YOU hear the other station. Almost all the time there is a noise floor of 6-7 S units on the receiver so it’s very difficult to hear that rare DX. She offers you just 3 dbi (free space and real ground also) in every direction picking everything there is. If the dx station is under the noise floor you just don’t hear it or it is very difficult to copy.

So my advice for the future buyer of this antenna: First check your place. Just put up a simple 14MHz vertical and check what is going on to your place. If there is too much manmade noise you surely will have a problem with R-8. If your place is quite then you are lucky – go get her.

Last words….. Maybe this review would be for anykind of vertical antenna. Yes maybe… but the R-8 just happened to be bought. Now she gave her position to the her cousin the MA5B (mini beam) due to traps problems...

I am here for every question…..


WA4BWO Rating: 2005-02-17
Smooth Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My R8 sits on a 5 foot pole in the middle of my yard and you can string to Sydney Austalia, draw a circle and thats the radius of my 5-9's, SSB with 100Watts from Central Florida. I've never had a pileup I couldn't work on any (even 20) band barefoot. I love this antenna! The XYL, however, wanted it behind the Avacado tress so she can't see it from the deck. I obliged, much to my chragrin, and found no difference in performance. I'm sure, if it were in an open field on top a hill, I would get more from this antenna, but with my location (in the middle of an old, tree laden town) in central Florida, this setup works great!
M0BJL Rating: 2005-01-11
Excellent! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Although I have a tower supporting a monoband antenna for 15m and 6m, those being my favorite bands, I haven't much room for any other antennas in my small plot garden. After reading the reviews on the R8 I decided to take the plunge and purchase one. This is an expensive antenna for the UK Market retailing at £469. I did try importing one from the States, RRP $459 but the import tax and carriage costs made it just as expensive. Anyway, I bought it and I have to say I am very pleased. It took me a little over 3 hours to construct and the manual was spot on. All the hardware is superbly made and went together very easily.
I only mounted my R8 about 3 feet above the ground on a 2" mast as I suffer problems with the local planning authorities and any higher would cause me problems. This was my only concern as most of the reviews I read stated that they had mounted it 10 feet and upwards. I needn't have worried, on tuning up the antenna resonated perfectly on all bands except 30m where the SWR was a little low, I shortened the distance between the 17/20 and 30m traps and this brought the swr spot on. First call on 30m resulted in a 3B8 (Mauritius) on a relatively flat band and only using 100 watts. Since then I've worked plenty of choice DX using barefoot power. I have done some comparisons between the 15m beam and the vertical and in most cases the R8 is down about 3 S-points which is expected.
Yes the R8 is a compromise and you do suffer some static which is common in most verticals but if you want 8 bands from one antenna and have a small yard or garden I can't recommend this enough!

Have fun!