so ive been running FT8 for about a year and a half now and yeah its great for racking up contacts and all that but honestly it feels more like a video game than actual ham radio sometimes. you click a callsign, exchange signal reports, done. theres no... conversation happening. i know thats kind of the point but still.

anyway i started messing around with JS8Call a few months back and its a pretty different experience. the whole relay/store-and-forward thing is interesting and you can actually type messages back and forth to people which feels way more like actual operating to me. but the signals i'm seeing on 40m are way more sparse than the FT8 segments and sometimes i'll sit there for 20 minutes and nothing happens.

i guess my question is whether anyone has found a way to work both without it feeling like you're splitting attention too much. right now i'm running WSJT-X and JS8Call on two different rigs which works but its kind of a mess on the desk. also curious if anyone still runs PSK31 seriously because i fired up fldigi the other day and found a few guys ragchewing on 20m and it honestly reminded me why i got into this hobby in the first place. the mode feels ancient now but theres something about watching that waterfall and having a real back and forth that FT8 just doesnt give you.

yeah the JS8Call activity problem is real, the mode never quite hit critical mass the way FT8 did and i think thats partly because the whole weak signal advantage is kind of undermined when nobody's there to hear you anyway. i run it on 40m around 14078 (wait no thats 20m, i mean 7078) late evenings and sometimes it picks up but you really have to be patient.

the PSK31 thing I totally get. i still jump on 14070 sometimes and theres usually somebody around, mostly older guys who have been doing it since the winlink days or whatever but they actually want to talk. decoding it visually on the waterfall is a skill that feels satisfying in a way that clicking a box in WSJT-X just isnt. the SNR requirements are obviously way worse than FT8 or even FT4 but if conditions are halfway decent on 20m you can still make it work. i wouldnt give up FT8 for it, just run them at different times depending on what im in the mood for honestly.

FT4 is kind of the middle ground nobody talks about enough — faster than FT8, slightly weaker signal floor but you can actually run it during a contest sprint and it doesnt feel totally robotic. i used it during the ARRL Digital last year and once you get the timing down it moves pretty quick. still no ragchewing obviously but at least the pace feels less like watching paint dry compared to the 15 second FT8 cycles.

havent tried JS8Call but might mess with it this winter when 40m opens up more. sounds like the kind of thing that rewards patience which i dont always have lol