Finally, we turn to the western states, having already dealt
with the W1-W3, W4, W5, W8 and W9 call districts.  So for the
west, we have additional data:
 
  Calls          Region         Distance       Path
 
   W6        Los Angeles, CA   11,900 km      mid-latitude
   W7        Seattle, WA       10,800 km      sub-auroral
   W0        Denver, CO        12,500 km      sub-auroral
   W0        Omaha, NE         12,800 km      auroral
 
None of these paths go into the polar cap and thus would only
be disrupted by significant magnetic activity which would
give rise to auroral events.  The paths from The Reef to Los
Angeles and Seattle are in complete darkness for about two
hours, from 1030 UTC to 1230 UTC while the other, longer
paths are fully dark for a brief time, centered around 1100
UTC.  For low band operations, those times should be noted.
Otherwise, propagation would be best starting around local
dusk.  At the present levels of solar activity, none of the
paths would show much promise above 14 MHz.
 
We'll look at the possibility of solar and magnetic activity
next time.  This will involve seeing which active regions
will pass across the solar disk during the DXpedition.