Hi Hazet...
It's possible that you and I are in similar circumstances... I've had to reduce my normal gains because of EM environment changes this summer, and have become a "short range" (<1000km) station, for now. I've a very noisy environment.... that's not too bad, since one of the network paradigms is, more or less, "every station working at about 600km and overlapping"... if you will... data beyond a few thousand KM doesn't necessarily help with the network paradigm, and most data <-30-50km is not necessarily usable, for many reasons. Non the less, many of us rate ourselves on "distance" rather than 'quality'... it's natural, and good clean stroke detection at distance is viable as an indication of how good our system is....
however... as in my case... with a noisy environment I cannot work with that assumption.... since the 'junk' signals over-ride and obscure my true capability. Would you believe that I finally found a 2M x 2M x 2M cube of space in front of my garage door that is the optimal location for my ferrites?
It's true, and took some time and experimentation. Now, other noises have entered, and I'm not able to mitigate them... so...
...I have left my specific thresholds at 120 for H field, 80 for E field, operate with "alternate channel mapping' to discriminate between the 5 channels of RED, and run lower gains than I'd prefer. I run in "manual" mode, rather than "auto" because auto will absolutely drive me nuts. I do not use either of the two firmware filters available, since they are rather specific, and do not apply to my situation.
And with all this 'inconsistency" my station is usually in the "top ten", if you will, in Region 3 (Americas)... Will you do as well? Don't know. This is not a "plug and play" thing.. as Gerhard implied, you're going to have to do a lot of optimizing,.... we WILL NOT use the phrase "tuning"... this is an "unturned" system... let's call it optimizing... with the goal being "best signal, overall" not "longest distance"... etc....
It's not possible for the system, presently, to actually have a precise indication of "effectiveness" or "efficiency"... simply because there are too many variable, antenna type, location, environment, soil resistance, humidity, cell location in relation to station
and the list goes on and on... So while the developers 'attempt' to provide some 'indication' of 'effectiveness' or 'efficiency' is important, and once understood, viable,.. it "does not mean a lot' when you are refining and optimizing your local environment...,.
Many of the "Americas" region (3 north and south America, etc) operators have chased issues up and down, north pole to south pole, here
http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?board=115.0
And we'd welcome anyone to join us there... and we believe that a THOROUGH reading of that board, as well as this one, will help folks with questions such as yours.... As Gerhard said, in effect, this is not going to happen automatically... you must "chase perfection" in your own location, EM environment, etc,...
Go For it !
It's more fun than a barrel of Rum Dunked Monkeys!
Cheers!'
Mike
