...I talked to a local who has been around since the "best" cycle of '58'...he indicated that this cycle was by far the worst and would rate it among the worst since records were kept...agree / disagree 
Two years ago, when the band conditions were better, it was possible to wake up at 6 AM EST. and turn on 10 meters and talk to all of Europe all morning, South American and the islands all afternoon.
The west coast into the evening and right before it was dark, talk to the people in Alaska and Hawaii and even heard Japan a couple of times with just 100 watts and the old Solorcon A99....+
To put it in perspective, in 1966, you could turn on your 11 meter SSB radio and with a good beam antenna like the Long John or Duo 6 - you could talk 24 hours a day all summer long and almost that long in the winter.. Many contacts were made Sunday mornings to Australia with just a Regency Range Gain and the Duo6...
12 watts PEP....
The problem with most people, and as other forum members has already stated is that unless the band is wide open, no one wants to talk on 10 meters anymore and no one uses 6 on a daily basis.
Most of that is due to the loss of the incentive license program.
No one monitoring means no one to hear you when you call CQ...
The mere fact that the massive amount of people on 11 meters shows us that the band is always open to somewhere in the daytime unless we have a solar flare. Using 11 meters as a barometer, we can tell which direction we can expect our signal to travel.
Surely the CB radio people do not have better equipment or more knowledge then we do!
