so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and i get the appeal, log contacts fast, works when the band is barely there, its great for chasing DX when you cant really hold a CW or SSB qso. but theres something that bugs me about it — its not really a conversation is it. youre basically just exchanging grid squares and signal reports and thats it. felt hollow after a while.

anyway someone on our local club net mentioned JS8Call and i set it up last weekend and honestly its a pretty different experience. still works on weak signals, not quite as deep in the noise as FT8 but close enough, and you can actually type back and forth like a slow keyboard QSO. reminds me more of the old PSK31 days where you could actually chat with someone.

my question is whether people who use JS8Call seriously are running it on 40m mostly or somewhere else. ive been hearing activity around 7.078 but its pretty sparse compared to the zoo on the FT8 frequencies. also whats the typical power people run — ive been doing 25w and getting some responses but not a ton. wondering if im just not finding where the activity is concentrated or if JS8Call just doesnt have the user base to make it worth monitoring regularly.

JS8Call is kind of a niche within a niche at this point. the user base is real but its nothing like FT8 which has basically eaten the digital world. i check 7.078 and also 14.078 on 20m depending on time of day, and 20m tends to have more activity during daylight hours at least here in the midwest. 25w should be fine honestly, JS8Call wasnt really designed around running barefoot QRP into a dummy load but 25w into a decent antenna is plenty. the issue is more just that you might be calling CQ and nobody happens to be watching at that moment.

i use it mostly for the store and forward stuff and the heartbeat beacons, its kind of interesting from an experimental standpoint. if you want actual chats though PSK31 on 14.070ish still has people on it, surprisingly. slower pace but the people there actually want to talk.

yeah the FT8 hollow feeling is real, i quit logging FT8 contacts after like 6 months because it started feeling like a video game score and not ham radio. switched back to RTTY contesting and at least thats got some urgency to it even if the exchanges are short. never really tried JS8Call but your post is making me think about it. does it run okay on a pi or does it need a real computer