John Plimmer wrote:

SEA GAIN is indeed a very interesting phenomena. A group of MW DXer's
throughout the world have been researching this and confirmed the very
beneficial results obtained when DXing by or near the sea. A couple of the
fella's unearthed research done by the BBC over forty years ago when they
were researching the best siting of MW transmitters. This was the definitive
paper that confirmed the existence of "sea gain" on the MW band.

I did a sea gain experiment with my Drake SW8 at Veldrif in 2005. Using a
reference station of France Info, Nice on 1557 I travelled inland from the
beach. By the time I got 10km's/6 miles inland the signal had dropped off
minus -23dB!

I can confirm after 40 years of DXing in various sites that DXing by the sea
is spectacularly better than the best inland location.
Most of your top American DXer's head for the coast during the DX season and
get amazing catches not possible inland.

It would seem as though some of the "top American DX'ers" are even resorting
these days to travelling to or near their wanted DX target, hearing said target,
and then actually counting that in their totals. Some are even resorting to
using some of the various "DX-tuners" throughout the world and "hearing" their
target via computer.

A travesty.

dxAce
Michigan
USA