Cushcraft Skywalker 15-3CD
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| Frequency | 21.0-21.45 MHz |
| Modes | SSB, CW, AM, FM, digital |
| Connector | SO-239 via Cushcraft's Reddi-Match feed (direct 50-ohm match, no balun required per the manual) |
| feedpoint | Reddi-Match to SO-239 |
Estimated (unverified): introduction year (1980s); power rating and wind area (not recoverable from the surviving manual text)
Full-size monoband performance with nothing in the signal path to fail: no traps, no matching network beyond the famously simple Reddi-Match, and element dimensions cut for exactly one band. Three full-size elements on 15 m beat any similarly priced multiband compromise on that band, and surviving examples keep working because there is so little to break.
Long discontinued, so you are buying used aluminum of uncertain history - check element joints and the Reddi-Match hardware. A 13-foot boom and 23 pounds for one band is a lot of rotator real estate to spend on 15 m unless you love the band, and exact factory specs take some archaeology since the maker's catalogs have left the web twice over.
A classic of the one-band-done-right school: if 15 m is your band and a clean example surfaces locally, it will outperform multiband compromises its size. Most operators with one tower slot will still choose a tribander; Skywalkers are for specialists.
Before compact tribanders conquered the suburban tower, Cushcraft's Skywalker series argued the opposite case: build the Yagi for one band, full size, no traps, and let physics do the rest. The 15-3CD is the three-element 15-meter member, full-length elements on a thirteen-foot boom, cut for 21 MHz and nothing else. The factory sheet claims 6.0 dBd forward gain and better than 30 dB front-to-back, and with no traps in the elements there is no trap insertion loss and no compromise resonance: the match sits near 1.2:1 across the band, and every watt goes where the boom points.
The feed is the series' charming signature. Cushcraft's Reddi-Match presents a direct 50-ohm match to a built-in SO-239 with no balun required, per the manual, one less box, one less failure point, and part of why surviving Skywalkers keep flying after decades. The series offered a four-element 15-4CD for another decibel or so and the 20-3CD for 20 meters; all share the same philosophy and similar hardware.
The line has been gone a long time, absent from Cushcraft catalogs since roughly the early 2000s, well before MFJ Enterprises ceased manufacturing in May 2024, and the Cushcraft revival announced under ITU Corp in April 2026 covers the MFJ-era catalog, which had long since dropped the Skywalkers. That makes the 15-3CD a used-market specialist's antenna: worth real money to the operator who lives on 15 m, worth passing over for the operator who needs three bands from one rotator, the role Cushcraft's own A3S tribander was built to fill. Its closest living relative in spirit is the full-size monobander idea itself, which never quite dies, it just waits for the solar cycle to make 15 m glorious again.