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Those of us who live in Florida and operate mobile can verify what computer modelers have been telling us about vertical antennas. I can drive on the beach in my car with a 1/4 wave mobile antenna and make contacts almost at will in the direction of the salt water. Once I get inland, my signal drops like a rock. One field day, I purposely faked a flat tire at the top of the sunshine skyway bridge, 200 feet over Tampa Bay, salt water in ALL directions! I got in about 2 hours of operating before the state cops made me call a tow truck, LOL. I simply re inflated the tire I intentionally flattened, and went on my way. Now I know why all Hams dream of a home "high on a hill overlooking salt water". As Roy and W4RNL have told us for years, we can do little or nothing about the far field the vertical antenna "sees".