Hallo
I have no concerns about fixing it with clamps, if you fix it with sense… But I have no experience in using the pole for a longer time, then two weeks at the campground.
The clamps are only for not collapsing, and of course: it is usefull to fix the pole with ropes. You can fix them with a velcro at the pole.
My favorite antenna is a vertical. If i use dipoles, I do not fix it at the top. It is not strong enough.
73 Armin
Hi Robert,
I use 4 telescopic fishing poles to hold up my 40m full wavelength skyloop at home as a semi-permanent installation.
The fact that the poles bend in high winds is a positive thing as they bend rather than break. By not fastening them at the junctions, if the winds get really bad, the poles collapse into themselves, so lowering the antenna and reducing the effect of the wind. So that is also a safety feature. If you dont want that simply tape the junctions as you put the mast up.
I also looked at clamps and even got some with plastic finger screws rather than screwdriver ones but the worry with those is that if you overtighten them (even with rubber under them), there is a chance that you could damage the mast and as I said I find the feature that the mast can collapse into itself is a good safety feature in storms.
73 Ed.
Yes, indeed. I also have a 10-m SOTAbeams pole and I have removed the top three sections and plugged the new top one with blu-tack (to keep the rain out). If you attach your 80m dipole to any of them, they will either bend alarmingly or snap in a high wind.
Thanks everyone for their input.
Ed - that’s a very good point, it has once before collapsed in high winds. I’d forgotten about that - I think I will untape the poles later!
Hopefully with the support at 4m it will be ok.
The wire dipole starts at the top of the second from last section, where the sotabeams insulator sits.
It’s such a light wire (also from sotabeams) and has a very narrow bandwith as it’s so small I guess!
73
Robert
Hi Robert,
Good to see you had already caught the point raised by others not to use the top two sections of any height of fishing pole, as they are too “springy”. I had meant to mention that. I have 10m poles that only raise the antenna between 7.5 & 8 metres off the ground. As the feedpoint mast I used a 12.5m mast with sections removed to make it only 10m high. I have a mix of masts from DX-wire here in Germany and masts that I brought with me from Australia. The Australian ones are far better quality and less than half the price of the masts I can get here in Europe! Their top sections are also thicker. Effectively heavy duty masts at half the price of light usage masts! If it didn’t cost so much to ship stuff from Australia, I’d be ordering the masts from there!
73 Ed.
Hi Robert,
The bandwidth shouldn’t be very narrow. My 80m dipole is also made of thin wire supplied from SOTAbeams (see photo via the link at my first reply on this thread) and the VSWR is good enough to cover most of 80m. I shortened the length of mine to be better for the CW sub-band [You don’t say whether you intend to do SSB or CW or both].
See my 80m VSWR plot at …
Mind you, I have a brilliant internal ATU in my KX2 which will load up a wet string if necessary.
73 Andy
I’ve only just noticed this remark. It may be a bit quicker to use the dipole as guy wires but I never do (any more) as I think it weakens the antenna / balun connections (I’ve had the plastic lugs on the balun break off with that arrangement).
Better to have four independent guy strings (which are cheap compared to your antenna), at or a bit below mid-pole height, to take the main forces and provide more stability. Using any guying at or near the top of the glass-fibre pole will cause the pole to bend in the middle in high winds.
That all makes perfect sense - thanks Andy. I will take a look at those links.
73
Hi all
I have w follow up question I hope you can help with!
Do you need to keep water out of these poles? Will water weaken them? I’ve just noticed that the top plug has failed so water will have been running down the inside…
I have it down as a new antenna is going up…
Hi Robert, The 6 and 10m fibreglass telescopic poles that I use for portable operation get wet all the time on summits, so I don’t think they are suseptable to water, however if there was a plug in the top section and that is now gone - use some good quality PVC tape to cover up the hole.
73 Ed.
For a permanent or semi-permanent installation it is essential to keep it sealed against water or at the least make sure that the water can drain out of the bottom. That is because water expands when it freezes and could split the pole.
Thanks both. I’ve just sealed the top with amalgamating tape. The bottom cap is off anyway so water will just drain out
It’s a 10m pole, top 2? Sections were taken out.
Do you think this pole would support the centre of a T2FD from about 7m up the pole?
I will guy the pole at about 5m up.
The plan is for it to slope down to some 3m canes at each end… can’t have anything ‘permanent’ due to restrictions…
Antenna weighs 3kgs without coax and wind load…
No. Or yes, but not for very long. For assorted definitions of ‘very long’.
Yes… that’s what I was wondering. Thank you for the reply.
Oh well, I’d better go buy another TV mast before all the shops close 
One of my other temporary masts is a TV pole that goes into a rotary washing line hole in the ground… Does the job but it’s only 15’ and means more £ 
im also using “temporary” fishing poles for 5-6 yeas now… all good. I do have a mast that I can install finally on the roof! 
I agree, Tasos, all good. I have been using a fishing pole as a permanent mast for many years. One snapped in a gale a year ago, it had been in place for many years.
Now we’re back to 45 degree polarisation!
Wax is handy for easy undo-able glueing of the joints.
(also for potting things instead of silicones and urethanes)
You can put the coax up the middle for less windage - foam coax will be lighter. Perhaps a thin teflon coax for the top couple of metres where the ID is less. (you can probably slide ferrite beads on there too, to form the balun inside the pole.
Make sure your thin wires are guyed with thin shock cord or weights/pulleys so the tension is limited when things move.