"Jimmie D" wrote in message
...
The chart does seem to be
indicating that one should use the closest skip contacts to get an idea of
the radiation angle. It was my doubts about this that inspired my
question.
Perhaps I am taking the chart out of context or maybe it is just wrong..

You shouldn't doubt a chart of things that happened. What you said makes
sense, otherwise. As Cecil said, the radiation leaves your antenna at
(optimum) angles between 9 and 53 degrees. (That's the half-power beamwidth
in an elevation view.)

Low angle radiation, the ground wave, peters out after a few miles, but you
do get local contacts with it. High angle radiation goes into space and is
lost. The mid-angles are refracted in the ionospere and returned to earth.
That's your set of distance range contacts.

Think of how it would be to toss a tennis ball toward a ceiling: If the
ball could go straight up through the ceiling, it would be lost; also, if a
low-angle toss never hit the ceiling, it would also be lost. It's those
mid-length tosses that bring the ball down somewhere in the room that pay
off. I realize this is an imperfect metaphor, but it may do the trick for
you.

"Sal"