JT9 DX on 40 metres mid morning

The HF bands are up and down, communication if you believe the propagation forecasts are not very good (early February 2017). A case in point was today with inter UK working being not very good. Close continental Europe of course is fine. I worked a station in Luxembourg, Netherlands and Switzerland.
Then on JT9 I saw Paul KA1MDQ over in Mashpee, MA, USA on the screen calling CQ. I went straight back to him and we exchanged RST signal reports of -22db and -25db respectively. As people know my antenna isn't complicated (just a long wire with 5 watts fed from a remote ATU into a 9:1 UNUN). This was a distance of 3152 miles - not bad for 40 metres during the day. I was encouraged that the bands are still open during the mid morning which is my normal time of working.

Propagation forecast 7th February 2017
K of 1 is good and it does say conditions on 80-40m is fair during the day.

I had a look around 40m over the previous weekend on JT9 and JT65 at about 1AM and found that it was crowded with stations from all over the world. It's a pity I like my bed more than I like radio so did not work anybody.

ZL still elusive on JT modes

Grey line propagation between UK and New Zealand is good this morning on 40 m. I can hear (detect??) a few ZL stations. However as soon as they come up they disappear again so no contacts made yet.