[TowerTalk] collapsible/foldable booms

[jimlux]

I'm looking at some ideas for a portable yagi, and I'm looking for 
something to use as the boom in lengths from 20-40 feet.  It needs to be 
"stowable" in something, say 4 feet long (like a golf bag), and not too 
heavy.  Something that needs "trussing" for rigidity is ok (because, 
after all the boom has to support the element weights, so basically it 
needs decent compression strength, without buckling)

Light weight would be nice too.  The surplus 4' military mast sections 
run about 2.7 pounds/4', so a 20 foot set would be 13-14 pounds.  That 
seems a bit bigger than I'd need, so if I could get down to the 5-8 
pound range, that would be nice.

The spiderbeam uses 1.15 m long fiberglass tubes, 35mm in diameter, so 
it's in the same general size as the aluminum mast sections ( a bit 
smaller..), they're about the same price as aluminum tubes.


So, any other clever ideas out there?  I'd love to be able to nest the 
tubes, because it gets to be quite a bundle.