Dan -- to roughly determine how well your antenna is working have a local
friend with a good antenna system help you on the band. Let your friend call
CQ or make a contact and then ask the other station to listen for you and
give relative reports. Try this for short hop and long hop contacts. And on
several bands.

Since you have an attic antenna and perhaps not up too high (less than 20
feet) you will have a high angle of radiation -- not good for long haul
DXing. See "How high should your dipole be" URL:
http://www.qsl.net/aa3rl/ant2.html

Since you stated that the other station was CQing then QRZing, perhaps it
was a DX station and they were picking out the strong stations and not
hearing you well or at all. The DX station may have a big tower and beam
running power as opposed to your attic antenna and 100 watts.

Hearing a strong station probably means they have a good antenna system and
maybe running power and have a good propagation path to you. Not hearing
responses may mean they have very poor propagation path to you (or skipping
right over you). Hearing "one way" QSO's on the bands is common depending
where the stations are located.

Since you are new to DXing -- perhaps bone up on propagation, band
characteristics, techniques, antennas -- some good books at eHam URL:
http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/42

As for RF safety --see URL:
http://n5xu.ae.utexas.edu/rfsafety/

73 and GD DX

--
Keyboard In The Noise

Opinions are the cheapest commodities in the world. Author unknown but
"right on"
"Dan" wrote in message
om...
I apologize for the simplicity of my questions:

Last night was my first real attempt to dx on 20 meters. I heard a
couple people calling CQ then QRZed allowing a number of stations to
identify. I heard some of the responses, but most were near
impossible to copy (The CQer was always 59). I put out my callsign
after every QRZed but never got a response. Is this normal or am I
having a problem getting my signal out? SWR is tuned to 1:1, my power
meter shows 100% TX power. Using an Icom 728 w/100W power.

I have a G5RV antenna cut to 20m in my attic, fed to a tuner.
Obviously, there isn't enough room for the ladder line to extend all
the way down, so most of it is just routed horizontally from one side
of my attic to another where it meets my RG58.

This brings up another question. When determining health risks (i.e.
how far away you should be from your antenna) does the ladder line or
coax count as part of the antenna, or just the radials?

Thanks for the help.

Dan