I also own a Cushcraft A3, but I have only used it for field day type
setups and it's currently in a box in Aruba. The aluminum tubing crushes
when you tighten the element clamps and in my opinion it is not heavy duty
but I have had many contest wins with it so I have no complaints.
I used a different A3 during the ARRL DX Phone contest last month. It was
mounted at 33'. One element fell off a couple weeks before the contest but
it was repaired. Running barefoot I made over 6200 QSOs in a weekend so
it works reasonably well. You can read more about this contest effort here
-> http://lists.contesting.com/archives//html/3830/2015-03/msg02222.html
John KK9A
To: TOWERTALK@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] antenna choices for K4XS
From: Bill via TowerTalk <towertalk@contesting.com>
Reply-to: Cqtestk4xs@aol.com
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2015 07:52:16 -0400
Ed is right about not having to spend money to have a big signal.
Although I bought my M2 stuff new, the four Cushcraft antennas are all
used. The A-3 tribander cost me $75. The three high stack of A-3WS
antennas
were all second hand and I think the three high stack for 12/17 cost me
around $500 total and that includes the 30 meter adapter kit for the top
one.
The signal is second to none on 12 and 17....for $500.
Bottom line, like Ed said...you can spend big bucks for antennas or you
can be resourceful and do it on the cheap, but still have a good signal.
K4XS
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|