I think there's some misconceptions about the NVIS thingy. Can't speak from experience with all of them, but I certainly can with horizontal loops and dipoles not very high off the ground. It's really odd about those two 'NVIS' antennas, I've worked WAS several times on both of them. Hawaii wasn't that difficult at all (RI was). The idea that the vast majority of signal is "straight up" is just so much BS. There's still quite a bit of signal on the lower than 90 degree directions. Of course there isn't gobs of low angle stuff, but you can say that about almost any antenna under the right/wrong circumstances. 'NVIS' is a very convenient label, and one that can be miss-applied quite easily.
- 'Doc