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wrote in
oups.com:

Larry; wuold I get the same results with a metal boat providing the
electrical system is totally isolated?
Jim

No, because the electrical system, which would be the actual antenna in
that instance, is INSIDE the shield of the metal boat. Sorry.

What makes any receiver work is the DIFFERENCE in potential between the
part we're calling the "antenna" and the part we call "ground" or
"reference". There has to be a difference voltage the receiver can amplify
and use. If the electrical system is inside the boat, there'd be a shield
around the boat's wiring, so there wouldn't be any RF voltage induced that
was different.

So, you'll have to insulate a shroud or backstay, use a whip outside the
hull or string a wire up outside the RF in the air can induce voltage into.
There's very little RF inside a metal boat, as I'm sure you know trying to
get radios and TVs to pickup anything in there on their little antennas.
Plastic boats are as transparent as if there were no plastic at all to RF.

--
Larry