Should I be getting better range?

You can incorporate the above curve in your skyaware map by method given here:

Bake A Pi - Option-1

Scroll down to following item and follow instructions:

Note:

The command given in that old post was for dump1090-fa map which has been replaced by Skyaware map. Therefore in that command /dump1090-fa/ should be replaced by /skyaware/. The updated command is as follows:

(1) SCROLL RIGHT TO SEE & COPY FOLLOWING LONG COMMAND IN FULL
(2) In this command replace XXXXXXXX by you actual heywhatsthat ID

sudo wget -O /usr/share/skyaware/html/upintheair.json "http://www.heywhatsthat.com/api/upintheair.json?id=XXXXXXXX&refraction=0.25&alts=12192"  

 

Clear Browser Cache (Ctrl+Shift+Delete) and Reload Browser (Ctrl+F5)

 

Here is my skyaware map with 40,000 feet flight altitude terrain limit ring incorporated: