Todd, have you been tracking your antenna system's performance using reversebeacon after your sunset?
I'm guessing that your sunset is circa 0300Z. Last night (Jan 24) you were picked up at 9 western skimmers, perhaps the furthest ones from you being WB6BEE and the VE6's. Based on my experience, that this would be expected performance for a good 160M transmit antenna at 5W level on a quiet night. (I certainly don't have a TX 4-square but I've been in top 10 of several 160M contests). As a cross-comparison on Tuesday night I was CQ'ing at 5W in the NAQCC 160M Sprint from my W3 location, and I was picked up by skimmers all over the east coast and by a few in 9-land and 0-land. Now a small skimmer data set is not the best way in the world to get absolute antenna performance results. But with some caveats, A/B comparisons (using same receiver site at nearby times and frequencies) are possible between two of your own antennas, or between your station and a nearby station. http://reversebeacon.net/dxsd1/dxsd1.php?f=0&c=nr7rr&t=dx N7TUG NR7RR 1826.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 12 dB 20 wpm 0859z 24 Jan VE6WZ NR7RR 1826.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 24 dB 20 wpm 0859z 24 Jan VE6JY NR7RR 1826.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 31 dB 20 wpm 0859z 24 Jan K2PO-7 NR7RR 1826.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 18 dB 20 wpm 0859z 24 Jan WA7LNW NR7RR 1826.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 19 dB 20 wpm 0859z 24 Jan WB6BEE NR7RR 1826.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 13 dB 20 wpm 0859z 24 Jan N7TR NR7RR 1826.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 25 dB 20 wpm 0859z 24 Jan N6TV NR7RR 1817.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 6 dB 20 wpm 0856z 24 Jan N7TUG NR7RR 1816.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 11 dB 20 wpm 0706z 24 Jan N6TV NR7RR 1816.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 8 dB 20 wpm 0705z 24 Jan NC7J NR7RR 1824.0 CW CQ [LoTW] 5 dB 20 wpm 0328z 24 Jan Tim N3QE > > _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
