Care and Use of Surplus Military Mast Poles

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Care and Use of Surplus Military Mast Poles
I was first exposed to the use of military surplus masts during Field Day in 2017. I have never seen a kit that included everything needed to erect a 40-foot mast, even the hammer. I started looking for one of these kits, the fellow members of the club kept talking about how they got theirs and how inexpensive they were… Those days were long past, the 40 Ft mast kits are now $400 – $500 if you can find one. I would still love to have one.Get more news about military mast,you can vist our website!

Most of the 4-foot poles that are available now are from the Camouflage Netting Support kits. They are designed to hold up a camo nets 8 – 12 feet off of the ground. These kits normally have spreaders and tent stakes included. The spreaders can be used to offset the antenna from the poles. What these kits normally do not come with is the guy lines and guy line adapters. If you are going to be putting any of these masts, you will definitely want to use guy line.
Fiberglass
These are light, portable 4-foot poles. These are especially useful for short masts. I did have one up 24 feet and guyed at the top, when taking down the mast I heard a cracking noise and was showered with very sharp shards of fiberglass and the poles that were above the broken pole. Even after this experience with the fiberglass poles, I would still use them when the mast height called for is 8 – 16 feet in height.

Aluminum – Ribbed
These are the most recently manufactured poles available. They are made of thinner material than the older WWII surplus poles. These can easily be identified by the ribs running the length of the pole and a collar on the bottom of the pole to give the thinner aluminum strength. I have now realized that some of the newer push up kits are using these poles and cutting off the collar at the bottom. These poles are not as strong as the older smooth poles and are now 46inches rather than the 48inches. If you use a push up with 6 of these, what you thought was a 24-foot mast is now a 23-foot mast.

Aluminum – Smooth
These are the older WWII poles. These poles have thicker material than the ribbed poles mentioned above. During the days that these were being produced, the manufacturing did not allow for the strict adherence to standards as we have now. You may find that the outside diameter maybe a few thousandths of an inch bigger or smaller in each pole. With that, some of the poles may feel a little tighter on the tripod. The paint on most of these poles are dull or missing, but since they are aluminum, they will not rust and lack of paint will not affect them. I would not suggest painting them as it may make the pole more difficult to push through the tripod.