Long skip potential of a given summit

One of strangest and perhaps most interesting things I have observed so far through SOTA is the variability of low angle take off performance from summits. It seems entirely repeatable too.

I think it is mostly determined by how good the soil-to-rock ratio is, and maybe how wet the ground is too. But interestingly the summit height, or proximity to the sea doesn’t seem to have a great influence to how well a station performs up there.

Just interested to hear other peoples views and experiences on this. Undoubtedly it’s been covered before I suspect.

Hi Jonathan,
I believe a summit near the Ocean is best for long DX. I strongly believe it particularly after having being activating by the Atlantic Ocean with just 5 watts and an endfed wire antenna today, at the very bottom of the solar cycle,


and having being chased by 20 North-Americans in distant places like California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado, plus several others closer to their East coast (i.e. VE1, NH, NC, PA…)
73 & HNY,

Guru

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