Greetings Rik and Andy:

Many years ago I did read somwhere an article about
horizontal dipoles used in the desert that were just laying on the sand.

I hope this relates, but we used to lay MF and HF antennas on the surface of
the snow or even ice in the Canadian Arctic.  When we started it was a big
deal to use some poles about 5 or 6 ft long to support the antennas, then we
noticed it did not mater (when they fell down) so we just let the wire lay
on the surface.

Larry
VA3LK