I bought an awning pole tensioner many years ago which I still have but I initially used it a couple of times but the faffing about with it is time consuming and found it just as easy and quicker to tension the poles manually by hand. You can get the right feel by hand as well whereas with a tensioner you have to watch you don't stretch the material to a degree where it could put excessive force on the seam stitching. However, if you become a victim of pooling on the awning roof from heavy rainfall then it might me a gadget that may come in handy to help eliminate the slack in the roof material.
Nice one Marg6.
I have just got a Walker seasonal/winter awning and the material is very thick and heavy duty and a few years back when I got a similar porch awning with the same material I did find it challenging initially to tension the poles. Once all the creases were were out it was a lot easier manually.