so ive been running FT8 for probably two years now and i get it, its great for contacts and the weak signal stuff is genuinely impressive, i was working stations last week at like -18dB that i never would have heard on SSB, but honestly after a while it starts to feel like youre just collecting grid squares and not actually talking to anyone

started messing around with JS8Call a few months back and its a completely different vibe, you can actually type out real sentences and have a back and forth, the latency is kind of annoying and it definitely needs a better signal than FT8 to decode reliably but at least when im done i feel like i talked to a human being

curious if anyone here runs both regularly and how you decide which one to use on a given day, also wondering if the JS8Call activity on 40m has picked up at all, when i first fired it up it seemed pretty dead compared to the FT8 watering holes

yeah i run both, FT8 is basically just logging software at this point haha, i mean that in the nicest way possible but you know what i mean. JS8Call i use more when conditions are marginal and i actually want to pass a message or just ragchew in a slow way. the heartbeat/store-and-forward stuff in JS8Call is underrated, ive had messages relayed through other stations when i couldnt hit someone direct

40m JS8Call activity is spotty in my experience, 7.078 is the usual spot and i do see stations there but nothing like the FT8 pile. weekends are better. also try 30m if you havent, seems like the more serious JS8 guys hang out there, bit quieter but you actually get responses when you call

PSK31 is still my favorite for a real keyboard QSO if conditions support it tbh, there's just something about watching that waterfall trace and typing back and forth in near real time that JS8Call cant quite replicate

the -18dB thing with FT8 still blows my mind every time, im running 10 watts to a compromised antenna in an apartment and working EU from the midwest on 20m on a mediocre day. that said i totally get what you mean about it feeling hollow after a while

havent tried JS8Call yet but this thread is making me want to, is the setup much different from WSJT-X? im using a SignaLink and an older Kenwood so wondering if itll just work or if theres a whole new config nightmare waiting for me