Years ago I was operating my QRP rig from a campground
in New Hampshire during a rainstorm. I gave my QTH, then
as I signed over to him, one corner of my tarp came loose,
and I had to run around and tie it off before everything got
soaked. When I finally put the headphones back on, he was
just finishing some sentence, and proceeded with the usual
exchange. Turns out the whole time I was otherwise occupied,
he was whooping and hollering about finally working a NH
station. I don't remember his QTH, but he was a W1 or a W2.
Overall, the number of stations in the first call area is less
than any of the other 10 districts - look at the current callsign
assignments and see the difference. And the Maritimes aren't
very heavily populated, either. VE2 is certainly more common.
Propagation can be quirky. At night, you may not be able
to work stations closer than 400 miles or so on 80m.
Even during the day, 20m may not open for distances less
than 600 to 1000 miles, depending on conditions.
Those are likely to skip over much of New England and the
Maritimes, although close contacts (like CT) may be made
via other modes.
So it makes a big difference what bands you are using,
as well as the time of day and the height of your antenna.
Two tools that I like for checking propagation are
VOACAPand the
Australian Space Weather Forecasts, particularly
their LAMP (Local Area Mobile Prediction) charts for local
contacts out to 1000 km / 600 miles. They don't always agree
with each other, as they make different assumptions. (VOACAP
lets you define power level, antennas, etc.)
The orientation of your antenna, and where it is fed, makes
a difference, too. Generally, longer distance contacts will
be more difficult off the ends of the wire than off the sides,
although close contacts (on 40m and 80m when the
ionosphere is cooperative) won't show as much difference.