NVIS Page 8

Never tried it, but I don’t think chain-link would work very well, due to all the millions of potentially corroding joints (poor lengthwise continuity).
However, welded-wire fencing might do the trick, tho I don’t have any idea how wide it would need to be to effectively reflect RF and reduce ground losses.
The best (and cheapest) solution to the poor earth problem would be to raise the dipole higher and put an elevated wire reflector element (5% longer) under (~ .2 to .25-wave) under the dipole. In effect, creating a 2-element yagi pointed straight up. However, how effective that might be on non-resonant freqs is questionable.
One thing is certain, putting a dipole over a large pond or wet/salty/acidic marsh works very well — so the trick (without such pond/marsh) would be to duplicate the conductivity and large area. Since an acre of welded-wire fencing would cost $thousands, I’d prefer the elevated reflector wire — but then, it requires higher supports for the dipole. That’s getting away from the “NVIS” idea, where a simple dipole is strung up pretty low (fast and easy), typically in an EMCOMM scenario, not an optimized permanent installation.
Hope that makes sense!
73, –kv5r