East coast, West coast it's all a matter of antennas, time of day, location and lots of patience.
I'm at sea level and just 45 miles in from the coast but I have no salt water enhancement and no height enhancement.
My conclusion is that while all of my operation is 70 to 100 watt mobile FM and SSB I have no choice but to use a vertical so I have to use as efficient antenna as possible and search around for the loud stations and call and wait until I get thru, especially with the insane pileups on 10 meters lately.
This week it was all Europe, (Scotland, Portugal) and New Zealand and South America easily on FM and SSB on the first or second calls while for some reason the Asians (China BY's and Japanese JA's) were hard to get, it took several calls each while a few weeks ago it was the opposite with easy Asian contacts and frustrating to hear loud Europeans that could not copy me.
MIke