Aluminum is nice, but one little ding or bend on it and it's dead.
It's a very solllicited item, at least with me. I use mine absolutly all the time and I wouldn't climb without it. It saves me an huge amount of efforts, time and irritations (most of the time). Setting my climb line above, sideway, even inbetween the ivy mess, retrieving the rope it if it gets stuck, pulling out hangers, debris on roof or small limbs over the fence in the neighbour yard, even dead wooding, getting back the rigging rope, catching a small limb out of range to prune, setting the maasdam's rope up a trunk...
The downsides are the fragile walls (breakes easily with a side pull) and the coupling mode. It's a one conical shape from one pole's end to the other and the external surface of one element fits inside the interior of the next bigger. The very small tapper can make it collapses if not set properly or gets deadly stuck if the pull is too hard. Learning curve.
The upside is that it's repairable, being fiberglass, even if it can be tricky with the few room allowed to patch it.
I've gone by quite a few with many repairs on them. That's because it's sooo convenient, that I end up to abuse them, even if each time I promize to be watchfull and gentle on it ! Not all my fault tough, like a limb rotates as it's pulled and a secondary catches my pole, or it falls earlier than expected and and other limb/trunk is in the way. But I still love it.
It's a 20' telescopic fishing poles, poket model for lac fishing. It's sold bare, no gear at all, at maybe 25euros. The compacted length is 22.5".
It needs a little work.
I ditch the thinest two parts, way too supple. Actually, I glue the largest of these two inside the new ending part to add some rigidity. I hot-bend a piece or rod in a S shape with a tail and glue it inside the end (hot melt for repair purpose). That gives the pushing and pulling capability. I ditch the screw cap at the big end (too brittle) and replace it by a cut off screw cap from a bottle, kept in place by like gorilla tape. I tie a string at the big diameter, the short end is for hanging the pole on the saddle, the long end is for catching the S hook and keeping the pole compacted.
The final length is around 16.5'. It's a practical limit of the system, due to the rope's weight on it ( collapsing if vertical or bending too much if horizontal). I'm still abble to set my rope that far away in the other tree /lead with one hand and arm at full stretch, if needed, but it's a lot of torque on the wrist. It's often too short, but bigger wouldn't makes it.