A tall tale from Spiderbeam

Those that are aware of Summits on the Air will know that for HF the favoured mast for mounting wire antennas in the field is a fibre glass telescopic fishing pole, often referred to as a roach pole. When I started out I used a 10 metre pole but when that broke I replaced it with something a little lighter a 7 metre version and found it is usually sufficient. These poles can be obtained from Richard G3CWI's SOTAbeams at a reasonable price or any fishing shop but I found a supply on the Internet where I could get them for £5 each. They were just the job, cheap and cheerful and I would not be bothered if I broke one.

The guys at Spiderbeam see things a little differently to me and have come up with a pole 26 metres high, that is 85 feet to us old fogies. Which may be a little over the top for back packing operations, like SOTA, but might have its uses as a support for vertical wires come field day. However ideas of fazed arrays can be put away for now as the price is 599 EUR which at todays exchange rate is £707 or $838 US and there was me all ready to buy four. Sorry SpiderGuys but I could buy a lattice tower for not much more and that would not snap in the first 70mph wind. These beauties are about four times the height of my 7m poles so I would be prepared to pay maybe £40 which is 8 times as much but not 141 times the price, but the SpiderGuys must know their market and there must be plenty of people with more money than sense.