so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and honestly its great for what it is, i get it, weak signal dx, log contacts, move on. but lately ive been feeling like theres something missing and a buddy of mine keeps telling me to try JS8Call for when i actually want to type something more than a signal report and a 73.

tried JS8Call last weekend on 40m and the activity was... not great around here. maybe 4 or 5 stations i could see on the waterfall, none of them responding. i know its not as popular as FT8 but i was kind of expecting more. is there like a specific time or frequency where people actually hang out on it or did i just hit a dead period. also running WSJT-X alongside it and my audio routing is kind of a mess right now with virtual cables going everywhere, probably my own fault.

for context im on a IC-7300 into a dipole up about 30 feet, nothing fancy. PSK31 used to scratch that itch for chatting but that feels even more dead than JS8Call these days. what are you guys actually using when you want more than just signal reports

JS8Call activity really depends on when and where you look. 40m around 7.078 tends to have some life in the evenings, at least here in the midwest. the thing people dont realize is JS8Call has this heartbeat/beacon thing where stations can be running in the background and you can query them even if theyre not actively watching the screen, which is kind of cool for a more async style of operating.

that said yeah the activity is nowhere near FT8 levels and probably never will be. i think of it as a different tool entirely. FT8 is basically automated contact logging with a radio attached, JS8Call is more like a slow chatroom that also happens to work when propagation is garbage. if youre on during a contest weekend a lot of the js8 regulars seem to disappear anyway since they get sucked into the contest.

for actual ragchewing though honestly i still drop down to PSK31 or even olivia sometimes when i find someone to schedule with. you just have to find people who are into it, cant really cold call on those modes the way you can on FT8.

same boat here, the audio routing with virtual cables drove me nuts for weeks. ended up just getting a second cheap USB audio interface dedicated to JS8Call so i didnt have to keep switching things around. probably not the elegant solution but it works and i stopped losing my mind over VAC configurations.