CushCraft's New MA5B Beam
Sean Baxter
Experience of installing and using Cushcraft's new MA5B, 5 band 3 element (2
driven) mini beam.
I ordered the antenna from HRO and to my surprise it arrived 2 days later
from the VA store. Costs $300 US.
The antenna is well built, traps look to be heavy duty with stainless steel
fasteners throughout. No missing parts. Instruction manual is easy to read
and understandable assembly instructions. However, because of the X hat end
of elements you need to have at least 2 saw horses to set the antenna on
while you connect these X hats on to the end of the elements. Also, I would
strongly recommend wearing safety classes with these X hat elements sticking
up everywhere. When assembled the antenna looks like a porcupine. You can
not put the antenna on the ground without bending these X hat elements.
Care must be taken to align the X hats to 45 deg. to the boom while at the
same time making sure the drain holes of the 6 traps are facing downward.
Innovative design in that the only band to tune for (element length) is 20
meters.
On air performance. I compared the MA5B to my trusted Caroline Windom coax
fed wire antenna at 40 feet. The MA5B was installed at 35 feet.
20 meters, disappointing. Signal strength was never better than the C.W.
At times signal was equal with the added help of some side lobe attenuation.
Signals on the C.W. were stronger most of the time. Only on local stateside
(high angle) signals did I see any front to back ratio (10 db on one
signal). Lowest SWR I got was 1.5 to 1, and band width is only about 150
khz. Need antenna tuner to get full output at band edges. I will say that
I tuned the element lenghts for 14.175 Khz per the manual and when installed
the lowest SWR was at 14.190 khz.
17 meters, looks good. Signals on the beam was equal to as much as 2 S
units (about 10 db) better than C.W. SWR 1 to 1. Beam nothing more than
dipole on 17 meters. The Caroline Windom seems to degrade in performance on
frequencies above 14 mhz and gets worse the higher in freq you go. Even
though the beam is only a dipole on 17m, the signals were noticeably
stronger because of this characteristic of my C.W.
15 meters, looking real good. MA5B was consistently 2 S units better than
the C.W. I could see a front to back of about 10 db as well. SWR 1 to 1.
12 meters, looks good. Beam was about 6 db better than C.W. Beam only a
dipole on 12 meters. SWR 1 to1.
10 meters, best yet. Beam uses 2 elements on 10m. About 2 S units betters
than C.W. Good front to back. SWR 1 to 1 and almost covers entire 10m band
with 2 to 1 SWR.
All in all I like the antenna. With my limited antenna mounting situation,
this antenna helped my 10 through 17 meter signal strength performance.
Some Specifications:
Elements: (2) on 10m,15m & 20 m bands. (1) on 12m & 17m.
Gain (dBi): 10m-5.3, 12m-1.0, 15m-4.8, 17m-1.0, 20m-3.6
Boom Length: 7.3 feet (2.2m)
Turning Radius: 8.8 feet (2.7m)
Longest Element: 17.1 feet (5.2m)
Weight: 26.5 lbs. (12kg)
Sean - K3XT