When you get skip on 11m, it usually goes halfway across the continent and nothing will be heard the next town over.

You need NVIS propagation to get a signal to a nearby location. That only works on lower frequencies like 30m through 160m depending on solar conditions. The signal gets send straight up and bounces back down in a several hundred mile radius around you. There is a map that shows which frequencies will currently work for NVIS as well as the Local Area Mobile Prediction tool to help you figure out what frequency to use for a given time and location.