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Reviews For: Cushcraft AV-3

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft AV-3
Reviews: 4MSRP:
Description:
3 band HF vertical antenna (10/15/20m)
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cushcraftamateur.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0044.3
KD8RUW Rating: 2014-01-28
Mr. Big mouth Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Owned since 1991. I say it has a big mouth because on 20m it is easily heard, but hasn't got great receive performance (for me). It's probably because verticals have low angle radiation. But the good news is that is is a fantastic performer for me on 15m, 11m and 10m. It took a lot of fiddling, but it's SWR is 1.3 or less all across 20,15 and 10... and by the way even 11m it's nearly flat 1.2:1 with no tuner needed. In the higher frequencies (15, 10) it's my #1 antenna and I use it over my G5RV. See pictures of the installation on my qrz.com page.
KB8DNS Rating: 2012-05-08
Long service, good performer! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Was given this antenna in a box as it was not known what it was.... non-HAM! Mounted it on the ground with lots of random radials and all three bands work very good with wide bandwidth.... 20 meters does really well with contact at 100 watts all over the planet! The price was right.... free! All I can say is WOW!
K3YD Rating: 2009-06-10
A challenge Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Had one of these for about 4 years. It was mechanically well built, but electrically a challenge to tune to resonance.

Had mine roof mounted with 3 resonant radials per band. I was able to achieve reasonable (1.4:1) SWR on 20 meters, but 15 and 10 could never be brought below 2.5:1 within the bands. Fifteen tuned best at 20.45 MHz and Ten liked 30.0 MHz.

Repeated adjustments of both radials and traps made no improvement.

I finally shorted out the traps and fed antenna and radials with ladder line. Only then did the antenna play.
G0SVO Rating: 2009-06-08
Bulletproof Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought the antenna in 1992, and it worked fine with a chickenwire groundplane. It came down in 1996 following a divorce, and was shipped inadvertantly to EI when my parents moved. It came back to G-land, where it sat outside doing very little for a couple of years.

A top section was bent when hit by debris from mini tornado. This was bent back straight by a local farmer / ham (thanks Ambrose), and shipped to ZL.

Now it is back up, and though a trap cover was damaged in transit, amalgamating tape has repaired that damage. The traps markings had gone and initial tuning was with the traps in the wrong way round. My new chickenwire groundplane is in and the antenna works fine, despite the abuse it has had over 17 years. It easily handles the 500w I put into it, and with the traps the right way round, tuned up no problem, all 3 bands with an swr of 1.5/1 or less. It regularly works into europe and I cannot rate it highly enough.

Given its history I would thoroughly recommend this antenna, and they do pop up at rallies from time to time.

Pete
ZL4TE (ex G0SVO)