When I lived in Key West, I had a QTH on the water. 

I experimented with a 40m vertical, first on the metal roof of the house, using the roof as a perfect ground plane. 

It worked OK.

Then I moved it to the end of the dock, and put out a ton of radials in the salt water.  It worked very poorly.  It was during this time when I learned that salt water has a skin depth of a few inches at HF.  Essentially I had a bunch of 3ft radials, with the hundreds of feet of radial wire underwater acting as a DC ground but invisible to RF.

Finally, I installed a single elevated radial about 1ft above the water.  The antenna turned into a monster.  I could easily work anything I could hear. 

Conclusions:  Antennas over salt water work significantly better than antennas next to salt water.  Also, some playing with radials needs to be done with antennas mounted over salt water, either through use of elevated radials (to "couple" the antenna to the salt water, IE the K2KW Team Vertical method) or to be smart and put out radials such that they are touching but are not submerged under salt water.  This is what AA7JV does when he goes to PT0S, ETC.

I lived in Palm Beach County for three years prior to Key West - and had a stealth 40m vertical in a restricted neigborhood.  It worked pretty darn well.  IMO Florida and Georgia/Alabama is the best location in the country for a DXer.

IMO,

The number one more important thing is operator skill.  A very good operator from a poor station will almost always beat the poor operator from a good station.

Second most important is location.  I lived in Key West on the salt water for 5 years.  I was a big gun with nothing more than verticals.  Florida geographically gets better openings into SW Asia for example, than W1/2/3, because the southern location means a path that largely misses the AU oval.

Third is antennas.  Location is more important, but good antennas can overcome a poor location to some extent.  In Europe, S5's and IK's with tribanders are often louder than OH's with big stacks. 

Forth is power.  Double the power for 3dB.  Double again for one S-unit.  You get more by upgrading from a dipole to a tribander at reasonable height.

My 40m antenna here on Guam is a single 1/4 wave vertical.  I made more than 1800 QSOs on 40 in the 2011 CQWW DX CW contest as a single op, and more than 1600 this year.  That is significantly more 40m QSOs than just about every other station in the top 10 in the world, many with yagis and antennas that otherwise would be considered better.  A simple vertical in the clear with a good ground system can be hard to beat.  Usually your RX is what suffers more than your TX because you can't null noise, such as QRM, like you can with a gain antenna (I have Beverages to compensate for that).

73, Dave

If I am split, I will always announce it.  For EU, I am split all the time just by the nature of the pileup.  For NA, it depends on conditions and how many callers I have.

Wherever I am listening - if up 1 or simplex - I am always listening around, +/- a few Hz (not hundreds).  I will often work a weaker caller in the clear off the side of the pile than a loud caller exactly up 1 or whatever.  I like to think I am rewarding the savvy operator instead of the packet spot clicker.

I think most good ops use this technique... I was fortunate to have some very good mentors.  The problem, especially during contest, is when everyone calls zero beat exactly, if simplex or split.  Makes it really hard to pull calls out. 

What I meant by my original response is that when calling someone, JAs usually will call zero beat if there are only 1 or 2 callers.  Any more and I'm working the RIT/XIT depending on if I'm the one on the receiving end or if I'm the one calling.

73, Dave

Here on Guam I literally work dozens of JAs just about every night on 80m.  Most call zero beat.  Not sure why you were hearing them call with an offset - it's unusual unless they are split or unless they have a pileup and are pulling calls from the side of the pile.

73, Dave KH2/N2NL

I know there were several on this list who mentioned needing Ogawawara JD1.

Harry JG7PSJ has been QRV the past two days as JD1BMH from Chichi Jima (Ogasawara).  His QTH does not have a favorable takeoff toward NA, but he has been putting a big effort in listening for North America.  I've seen him on 80m calling CQ NA (East Coast sunrise) and the high bands when open stateside during our mornings (NA afternoon/early evening).  He is well aware of the demand exists especially into NA, and is doing what he can to help.

On 80m he had East Coast callers and seemed to be hearing them reasonably well. 

I think he will be QRV for a couple more days at least.

A vertical or sloping dipole would work well for you also, and eliminate the need for radials.

You can consider RG8X - very light weight and less loss than RG58.  Cheap too.

My personal experience with ground mounted radials in salt water was not great, but it would probably work fine for you if you can lay them in the wet-but-not-submerged zone of the beach.  Don't forget the skin depth of RF - in salt water it is only a few inches.  So, if you throw a long radial into deep salt water, only the wire within a couple inches of the surface sees RF.  The rest is wasted wire.  So, in a sense, you would be loading a vertical with very, very short radials - not ideal at all!

You'll do well with vertically polarized antennas very close to, or over salt water.  Even if set back 20 or 30 ft - you will lose a very large percentage of the salt water enhancement. It really needs to be at the water's edge if at all possible.  I spent 5 years on the edge of salt water in Key West and verticals mounted on the dock over salt water (with one elevated radial per band) greatly outperformed the same vertical set back 30ft from the water's edge.

100w and a multi band vertical and you'll have lots of fun.  Do a Google search for K2KW and read about his elevated radials - I prefer them to radials in the water.  They worked much better for me elevated.  AA7JV on the other hand (PT0S) prefers radials in the salt water but uses remote tuners to adjust for tidal changes (which will change antenna resonance).

http://www.n2nl.net/?page_id=40  describes the dock mounted antennas I used while in Key West.

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Wake might be a tough nut to crack, since it is essentially a high security missile facility. I believe Intrepid has tried and has been turned down.
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Actually I believe it's an Air Force facility largely in caretaker status, minimally manned, with some support type stuff there for COMMS, etc.  I don't know all the "ins and outs" but I suspect the Commander didn't see much reward in the risk of having a group of civilian hams come out to the island - IE someone gets sick or injured and needs to be medivaced. 

Probably similar policy to KG4 where you have to either have military orders or be invited there by one of the residents (which themselves are military or military contractors).

I manage the two Coast Guard buoy tenders in Hawaii (from a planned maintenance perspective) and they often visit the KH's - KH4, KH7K, KH1, KH5, ETC.  They rarely spend more than a few hours in these places however (aside from KH4 which has some facilities).  Generally anchor overnight and have some island liberty for a few hours for the crew to get R&R and explore a little bit.  Not really accommodating from a DXpedition standpoint, which is one reason I haven't pursued assignment on one.

Unfortunately I probably won't be able to save them all, because I am restricted in the amount of weight the government will pay to ship during transfer.  If it comes down to my kid's clothing (or my wife's shoes) versus the QSL cards - the cards will lose. 

I'm sure I will save a lot of them however... for awards chasing later down the road if I am ever stationed somewhere that is more radio restrictive than my current location.  For now I have them boxed in storage totes in the corner of the shack.

As for LOTW - I try to upload frequently but the latest software issues have meant nothing new since November even though the logs were uploaded.  Hopefully they get that sorted out soon.  I really enjoyed being able to upload daily logs to LOTW during my trip to GTMO (as KG4NL).  I can tell guys are appreciative of the uploads and that's plenty reward for me.

In the three CQWW DX contests this year - RTTY, SSB, and CW - I made just over 16,000 QSOs total.  For the rest of the year, add about another 15K QSOs. 

I'm up to over 70K QSOs from Guam since arriving 2.5 years ago.  I'm starting to pay the price with bigger and bigger incoming buro shipments... the last with more than 3,000 cards (I have a great QSL manager and I still see 100% QSLing as a responsibility).

When I first arrived I made a ton of QSOs outside of contests on all bands.  Now, outside of contests, I am focusing on the low bands (80/160) as these are the bands where KH2 is in the highest demand.  I'm very lucky to have pretty much unlimited room for RX antennas (Beverages) - something no one (to my knowledge) has had before from Guam - so I'm trying to make the most of it while here.

73, Dave KH2/N2NL

Not necessarily 24/7 with JA... it's a 4K mile path from KH2 and it's another 1500 miles to Japan.  Now that it is sunset here, they are weak but readable on 40 and 30, but have a better path to EU and NA apparently - me and all the JAs calling (some with multiple KW) can't break through.

Absolute JA chaos on 15m right now.  ZL9 asks multiple times for the BV1 and dozens or more JAs keep calling right over poor BV1EK, zero beat with him.  ZL9 gets credit for sticking with a call until he gets it, but in this case, he copied BV1EK incorrectly because the JAs would not shut up.

Absolutely disgusting behavior out of what is normally very well mannered Japan.  There were literally hundreds of JAs calling incessantly across the split while ZL9 specifically was asking for one guy - the BV1 - several times.

This will be a tough nut to crack for most if this type of activity continues.

-KH2/N2NL

To say there are quiet locations is difficult.  Power line infrastructure is poor in these countries.  Noise is very high.  Some of the Himalayan countries have a 200w power limit.  Add this to the polar path into NA, it makes for a very difficult QSO.

73, Dave

There are a number of different OTH radars on the bands.  The big one is the Chinese "Dragon" which is often on 40m but seems to be permanently located on 60m now.  I've heard it on other bands as well.  I think it follows propagation.  There are other radars that show up briefly on other bands then disappear - whether they are Chinese or not I do not know.

From Guam the Chinese radars are very loud - many dB over s9.  They are probably directed at Guam where there is a large Air Force presence including forward deployed strategic bombers (this is common knowledge and not a violation of OPSEC).

Nothing we or the FCC can do about it.  Even worse is the Chinese QRM on 10m caused by two-way commercial FM and AM radio traffic.  It has destroyed 10m any time the band is open to China (which means EU also).  Here is a MP3 of what it sounds like here.  Nothing you can do about it - otherwise 559 signals are completely obliterated by it. 

http://www.n2nl.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/10mnoise.mp3

73, Dave

Pete, I'm waiting for the next dip in SFI and quiet geomagnetic conditions, and I'll be back on 80m.  Still waiting for you to call in one of these days!  I try to be on for EC sunrise.  1/4 wave vertical with 90 radials and 1.5KW.  If you can hear me, I will hear you (1000ft Beverage toward W2/W3)

73, Dave