salt water as a radio antenna

Dear All,

Please excuse my novice question, but I have been stuck with this idea since reading Clarke's "Imperial Earth": if long wavelength radio transmissions are the way to communicate across the cosmos, and if we're to receive those transmissions, could we use salt water reserves of Earth to receive those signals? In particular, could we connect together the salt lakes (Salt Lake in Utah, the Dead Sea, etc.) into a large antenna for such reception?

I recollect that water attenuates radio transmissions, but I wasn't sure about salt water. This is what you get for being a biology major.

Best regards, and appreciative of your responses,

Rob

lets not forget that oceans are full of salt and nobody has thought to coat the bottom with a reflective surface so that they could be bounced to a receiver, in space? which would be silly.
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