I spent the day trying out new antennas for my amateur radio station. I like to work CW (that's Morse code for the non-initiated) so I recently bought some CW-only radios to use. I originally built a wire antenna, but my wife took "mild" exception to the sight of the antenna strung up in the trees in the backyard.
As a compromise, I got some mobile antennas which normally are used on vehicles, but when used in pairs make a reasonable facsimile of a dipole antenna.
I should mention that I have been inactive for about 6 years, so I'm sure it was a shock to my wife when I suddenly started to take an interest in radio again. She probably thought she had seen the last of the radios.
I use both 40 meters and 15 meters (look it up, I'm tired), and the 40 meter antenna just did not want to tune. There did not seem to be much activity on 40 today, either, although this may have been due to the antenna tuning.
I switched to 15, and the band was alive with U.S. stations. I heard stations in Michigan and Minnesota, and worked stations in North Carolina, New York, and Florida.
15 meters is normally a DX band, that is, a band where U.S. amateurs can work stations in other countries. I worked a station in France with the wire antenna a while back.
But DX propagation on 15 meters is highly dependent on the sunspot cycle, and the cycle is in the downward phase. Also, the solar storms this week have not helped conditions on 15 too much. Conditions today favored "short skip", so that most of the stations heard were within about 1500 miles of my location. I did hear a station in Hawaii calling, but could not work him. My transmitter only runs 4 watts, so all contacts are a challenge.
So I have a few new states to add to the list. If I can get the 40 meter antenna working, I should be able to add to the list pretty quickly.