TF3KX wrote:
I have been considering a vertical setup on the top of my galvanized
sheet metal roof and using the roof as a ground plane. My brief tests
so far indicate that the performance of such a setup does not deliver
as strong signals to my RX as my simple inverted-V. Nevertheless, my
roof is only 2 years old, still in good condition and with well
overlapping sheets.

There may be various reasons for this, but it has occurred to me that
the galvanized roof may not be such a good RF-conductor. Due to the
skin effect much of the current would run in the zinc coating, for
which I do not have much information on as far as RF-conductivity goes.
Does anyone have a comment or suggestions on this?

The surface area is so large that you wouldn't be able to tell the
difference between zinc and a perfect conductor.

By the way, I am going to try to lay additional wire radials (aluminum
welding wire) on this roof, which is the subject of a post I just sent
out before this one.

That doesn't make any sense to me, unless you're concerned about the
quality of the contact between sheets. Even then, I'd think that the
capacitance would be adequate.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL