In article ,
"Steve Lusardi" wrote:

If your boat is fiberglass or wood, make certain you have a ground plane for
the antenna. The earth connection of your transceiver needs to connect to
large matt or screen on the hull which is connected electrically with the
water. Some boat builders bond the screen into the deck. As a check, borrow
a VHF base station antenna and see if it performs correctly. If it does, you
have found your problem. Now fixing it, is another matter.
Steve

The construction of the hull of the vessel has absolutly "No Bearing"
on the preformance of a VHF Marine Antenna, that is on a mast, or
elevated more than 3 feet off the deck. Any advice to the contrary
is just plain BS. Any installation of "Screen" in the deck of a vessel
for Grouding Purposes is also plainly BS, and is basically a useless
undertaking. Again, any advice to the contrary is uninformed,
especially for Vhf Antennas, and even for MF/HF Antennas. If you
would like to dispute the above, feel free to give us your source
of this great "Radio Wisdom". We can all use a good laugh and smile
session.


Me who really would enjoy, someone defending the above statments
with REAL Science, and Real Physics......