Spiderbeam 40 ft HD fiberglass poles are perfect for building all kinds of wire antennas. A single person can easily put them up within a few minutes. Especially developed to make portable equipment even more rugged and durable!
These are extremely strong poles, with a much greater wall thickness (up to 2mm) than the usual "fishing rod" types. A special reinforcing winding technique - several layers of fiberglass are wound in alternating direction (criss/cross winding) - provides greatly increased lateral and linear strength. Stronger joints are achieved by a much larger overlap between the individual tube segments than usual.
The segments are held together by an internal friction locking system. Pull up each section and twist pulling upward at the junction to hold the segments together. Reverse to take the pole down. See guying and clamping information below.
Spiderbeam 40 ft HD poles are very well suited for building 40/80/160m wire GP or inverted L antennas.
They can also easily support temporary lightweight 1 Element Quad or Delta loops for 20-10m, and dipoles for all bands, especially when used with open wire feedline. (Most baluns would be somewhat heavy).
4-6 poles could be used to build lightweight beams for 40 or 80m.
The top segment is 8mm in diameter (and 1.4mm wall thickness), so the poles can be used to their full 12m length - unlike other poles where the top segment is very thin as a whip. During our tests we were able to put 80m inv vee dipoles (made from 1mm diameter enameled copper wire (AWG 18) and open wire feedline) right at the top of the 12m pole.. No way you can do this with a regular "fishing rod"! The pole is hollow, allowing wire or feedlines to be fed inside the pole if desired.
The best wire to use for building such wire antennas (verticals, loops, dipoles etc.) is AWG 18 (= 1mm diameter) enameled copper wire or similar.
Guying and clamping information. Guy belt made of seat-belt style woven material allows the pole to be guyed in 3 or 4 directions. Unless using the pole as a vertical wire support, guying most likely will be needed as even modest amounts of horizontal wire and/or coaxial cable can exert pull on the pole.
The clamp set is used primarily for permanent installations. With variation in humidity or temperature the segments can expand or contract leading to the friction lock loosening. To prevent this the clamp set is installed just above the junction of each segment to keep the pole vertical at all times.
These poles are suitable for permanent installations. Fiberglass is coated with black UV resistant paint. Glossy at application, long term exposure to weather will turn it a more matte looking finish. They can be left outside for many years without effect.
Click this link for .pdf graphic document on guying the poles
Accessories sold separately:
- stainless steel clamp set
- guy belt
Specifications:
- fully extracted length 40 ft (12m)
- transport collapsed length 3 ft 10 in (1.18m)
- weight 7 lb (3.3kg)
- bottom diameter 2 5/32 inches (55mm)
- top diameter 5/16 inches (8mm)
- number of segments 12
- pole material, black fiberglass, UV protected specially reinforced multi layer winding
