i lift it off the floor in one piece upto the 30ft mark then add sections.
I did have the no 3 section snap once just lifting it from the floor. I always lift it slowly and progressively. Alex kindly replaced my broken section free of charge, He thought that I must have damaged it somehow, but I hardly ever use that pole, and when I do I'm carefull.
I measured the tube wall thickness where it broke, and was somewhat surprised to find that it is only between 0.4 to 0.5 of a mm thick, but Alex assured me that this is within manufacturers tollerance.