As can be seen from the front page of my web site, I live on the eastern slope of a mountain range in southern Arizona.  The steep slope dramatically lowers my takeoff angle eastward and even more dramatically raises it westward.  During contests I am typically one of the very first west coast stations to be able to work Europe on 20m, but I am greatly inhibited from making contacts to Oceania or Australia/New Zealand except for the occasional mid-day long path opening.  To illustrate this, below are my HFTA (High Frequency Terrain Analysis by N6BV) plots for 80m through 10m.  Each plot shows my antenna takeoff angle profile to Europe (dark blue line), South America (red line), Oceania (green line), and Japan (light blue line).


80m    Inverted-V with apex at 68 feet




40m    2 element coil-loaded yagi (Optibeam OB2-40) at 83 feet




20m    4 element yagi (Optibeam OB16-3) at 73 feet




15m    4 element yagi (Optibeam OB16-3) at 73 feet




10m    8 element yagi (Optibeam OB16-3) at 73 feet