[Blue_Heron]

Hi,
I've been a member for a few months, but mostly been lurking.

In my experience, problems in VHF antenna installation usually affect transmission way more than reception. If you can find a friend with a SWR meter and talk him into coming by for a beer, you'll be a step ahead when you get out on the water.

I have a friend who's a HAM and he's helped me tune antennas on both my boats. One thing he advised that kind of surprised me was to ground the antenna base (I mounted the antenna to a fiberglass poling platform). The improvement on the SWR meter was significant and so was the transmission distance on my next outing. I always thought the coaxial cable also served as a ground, but an independent ground certainly helped in my application.

Dave