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
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