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Reviews For: Cushcraft D3

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

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft D3
Reviews: 5MSRP: 369.95
Description:
Rotatable Dipole for 10, 15, and 20 meters
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cushcraftamateur.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0054.6
M7BCN Rating: 2023-11-16
Excellent Tri-band Rotatable Dipole Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Cushcraft D-3 Tri-band Rotatable Dipole, this one is the original CushCraft driven element from the CushCraft A3S three element Yagi. Not wanting to push my luck with my neighbours, I’m currently using it as a rotatable dipole.

I’ve got it mounted 10m high and I’m very impressed with how well this antenna performs. I’ve managed many UK to USA phone contacts using only 10w. Even managed one into VK.

Ive tuned the antenna for the phone section of all three bands and don’t need to use my internal tuner. Despite being a little concerned about the centre insulator, it’s stood up to two recent storms and heavy winds. Picture is available on my QRZ page. M7BCN
AF6HO Rating: 2023-08-18
Great tri-band dipole, solid build, QC problems Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've only had the antenna up for a few days so far. I've got it on top of about 16' of generic TV mast with some simple lightweight guy wires and the budget friendly TV antenna RCA super light duty rotator. Built it to the specs for Phone bands in the manual, SWR for 20m was dead center on the band and 15/10 totally acceptable. I used the DXEngineering balun upgrade kit instead of coax loops.

Compared to my prior Comet CHV-5x compact antenna, I can finally now hear and communicate DX on 20m. Directionality is very good. The old antenna was totally deaf by comparison. Qso #2 was from QTH In San Jose, CA to New Zealand, had a great 30-min QSO on 20m.

The bad: Several sections were missing the notches in the aluminum tube that allow the flex in the tub for the clamps to actually clamp the sections together. It's like the machinist put his work down at the end of the day, forgot it wasn't done, packed it in the box the next morning and moved on. This was the case on the short section between the traps; one side had the notches cut but they need notches on both sides to clamp the trapped sections together. The outboard section connecting the traps to the smaller extensions was also missing notches on at least one side. Luckily I figured out that my dewalt vibrating tool had a metal tooth attachment and a half hour later I was done cutting notches to finalize assembly. There was lots of extra other hardware bolts and split washers included.
IZ1CLB Rating: 2010-03-07
Good Time Owned: more than 12 months.
A well made dipole, it work like a dipole. Simple tuning on 30m band. At the top of my small (10 meters) pole from 2005, with very strong wind, snow and ice; no problem. Some rust in the bolts at the feedpoint, still no swr till now.

73 de IZ1CLB
W9VNE Rating: 2010-01-18
effective performer Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Mine is up at 45 feet. Using a rotor to turn it. From June until Dec 31, 2009 I worked 175 countries with it. Most of the time I was running 100 watts. I have used it with an amplifier too. I have been able to work Zone 23, 24 and 26 on Twenty meters which is our most difficult path. Most of the activity has been on 20 CW but that is only because of the limited propagation at the moment. During the December ARRL Ten Meter Contest it worked very well for me. Ground wave propagation sounded like a yagi to me. Ten opened with Es for several hours and this was fun. In a contest like that the dipole works better than a yagi which reduces your signal off the back by several S units. I have found over my 57 years on the air that dipoles are under appreciated. That is because they are used very little. Instead the inverted V which does not work as well (in my opinion) is used more often. These inverted V setups do not work as well. Look at the ARRL Antenna Book for a comparison of the two antennas on the polar plots.

This antenna gives me an SWR of 1.4 to 1 over my desired part of the band (CW). The price is fair. It has a low profile. I have used large yagi antennas over my career. This is a step down but not that far.

AB4D Rating: 2006-09-02
Great Antenna for Stealth Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I used a Cushcraft D3 when I lived in an HOA controlled area. This antenna was just what I needed to get on the air without having to mount it outside. I successfully mounted the D3 and a D3W in my attic which was about 35 feet by 50 feet. I just assembled the antennas in the attic in a straight line fashion and hung them from the roof trusses with a 2X4 and used nylon ties to keep the elements level, with one antenna on each side of the attic. Tuning was a little difficult because of tight spaces, but the plus side is you don't have to really tighten the elements too snug because there are no weather or wind issues. My only suggestions for this configuration is to get all the antennas in place before you tune to avoid any interaction you may get from adding an antenna later, and if necessary, use a tunable counterpoise system if your on an upper floor to minimize any stray RF, and use as little power as necessary. On the air I got good reports and many Ops were shocked to learn that I was using attic mounted antennas. If you check the logs for some of the ARRL's DX phone contests during the years for 2001-2003, under my call, you will see the results of using this antenna, a D3W, and a 150 foot wire loop, but keep in mind that I am not a very good contester. I rated this antenna a five because of its versatilty, construction is outstanding, and in my opinion, performance is very good for a trap dipole.

Jim/AB4D