I'm rather new to the whole hf band so you'll have to forgive me, but how do people make  contacts in, for instance California, if they live all the way in Florida? Does it have something to do with the 60 foot or even longer antenna  that's hanging outside their house?if so, isn't  HF similar in distance to a.m.? I can only get a.m. station  about like maybe 15 to 30 miles away from my house. Maybe even longer, I don't know the distance. But, living in Louisiana, I definitely cannot get an a.m. station from Alabama. There's probably something totally different about hf that allows such a long distance is to be made.
On a totally unrelated note, does the Kenwood ts590 support USB and lsb? Looking at the specs today I only saw Ssb.
Thanks for answering my questions! Everyone of them. :-)