so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah the DX is great, worked like 60 countries with 10 watts into a dipole which blew my mind, but it kind of feels like... operating a slot machine? you click confirm and wait and thats basically it. heard about JS8Call and been messing with it the past few weeks trying to figure out if its actually useful or if im just chasing the next shiny thing.

the weak signal capability seems similar enough, like its based on the same FT8 engine more or less but stretched out for messaging, but im finding the timing a lot less strict which honestly is a relief. had a few actual back and forth exchanges with a guy in Ohio and one in British Columbia and it felt more like actual radio contact. latency is rough though, like you send something and then just sit there for a while waiting.

my real question is does anyone actually use JS8Call regularly or is it kind of a ghost town on most bands. i check 40m around 14.078 and sometimes theres activity and sometimes its totally dead. curious if theres a better time of day or if i should be trying HF or different bands. also wondering if the relay/store-forward stuff is worth learning or if thats overkill for casual use.

JS8Call is definitely not a ghost town but its way more region-dependent than FT8. i get pretty solid activity on 40m evenings here in the midwest, usually a dozen or so stations showing up in fldigi — wait no, in the JS8Call client i mean. the 14.078 you mentioned is actually more the 20m JS8 calling frequency, 40m is around 7.078 if im remembering right, might be worth double checking that because it could explain why youre seeing dead spots.

the store and forward relay stuff is actually pretty cool for emcomm practice if thats your thing, i did a thing with our ARES group where we used it to pass simulated messages through a relay node and it worked surprisingly well with pretty marginal conditions. for casual ragchewing though yeah it can feel slow. once you get used to the rhythm its fine but the first few sessions feel like watching paint dry honestly. FT8 scratches the DX itch, JS8Call scratches the actual communication itch, i kind of think of them as totally different tools at this point rather than comparing them directly.

PSK31 still does it for me when i want an actual qso, the waterfall on a good evening is just full of signals and you can have a real conversation at something approaching normal typing speed. i know its not quite the weak signal monster that FT8 is but honestly for stateside contacts its plenty sensitive and way more interactive. just throwing that out there since nobody talks about PSK31 anymore and it kind of makes me sad lol