hi richard:
Actually, its interesting you should mention that the band conditions seem
poor...the past 2 weeks have seen unusually good openings into europe,
africa, australia, and much of asia and south pacific for us here.
The past 2 days have started opening into south america as well...this is
all on phone mind you since i don't do CW yet.
Also, for about the past week, the conditions have been wide open into
europe from around 11:00AM local (mountain day light savings time) until
well after midnight.  Australia and asia have started to come in around
10:00PM and staying until well after 2 AM.
So, perhaps where you are in the world, there doesn't seem to be great
conditions, but up here in Alberta, and from what i have heard on the bands,
much of the US, the conditions have been unusually good for May.
Keep in mind, all of what i mention is taking place on 20M to the best of my
knoledge since i don't really have an antenna for any other band.
15M might also be seeing some activity, but, contrary to what is happening
in the southern states, 10M and 6M are absolutely dead here at the moment.
I am also hearing more then the usual amount of CQ's from the US stations
and from europe as well. SO things definitely aren't dead here.

A note on the sun spot cycle, we are actually nearly at the very bottom of
the current cycle.  The cycle will begin to rise again by about summer, or
fall of 2007 and we are supposed to get the peak in 2010 or something like
that.
I can send links to various sites which will outline the current predictions
and how accurate they seem to think the predictions will be for the next
peak.
Also, there is info regarding the last 20 cycles and when their peaks were.
One of the interesting things i found out was that the conditions back in
the late 50's, early 60's were some of the best conditions for propigation
ever recorded.
That is why many of the old timers talk about how great conditions were back
then...they are actually right, they were as good as has ever been seen in
amateur radio.
Also, the next peak, in the next 4/5 years or so is supposed to be one of
the strongest since the 50's...so we all have something to look forward to.
There are allot of speculative guesses about where we are in the cycle, and
when the next peak will be and so on and so forth, so i will send those
links to help clear up any miss-information that might be floating around.

73
Colin, V A6BKX