Carbon Fiber Masts - Good or Bad?

[VA3KOT John]

Carbon fibre and fibre glass masts are not rigid. In fact most of them bend very easily indeed, so an inverted-L's vertical section will be separated from the mast by at least a couple of feet due to the flexing of the mast. Dave's point about running the wire up inside the mast is a good one. The Sotabeam video showed a loss of 0.07dB for wire adjacent to and outside the mast. That would equate to a loss of just over 1/100th of a S-unit.

Just like Adam, I have run wires through trees many times - usually when I am setting up in a Provincial Park for a POTA activation. I am sure the tree must couple with my wire to some extent but I still make lots of contacts.

I own what was originally an MFJ telescoping fibre glass pole. I broke the thin top section by putting too much tension on it, then one day I set it up on a huge tripod. Big mistake, the wind toppled it and it crashed to the ground breaking several sections near the top. I replaced them with sections from a fishing pole from one of the US outdoor stores. If I had the budget I would replace the whole thing with carbon fibre just for the strength.