so ive been running FT8 pretty heavily for the last year or so, got my DXCC entities up to 287 which im happy with, but lately ive been feeling like its just... automated stamp collecting? like i click a callsign, the software does its thing, i get a confirmation in LoTW, and thats it. never actually talked to anyone.

a buddy of mine at the club keeps pushing me toward JS8Call and i finally installed it last weekend and messed around with it a bit on 40m. the interface is a little rough around the edges compared to WSJT-X but i get what its trying to do — its basically using the weak signal propagation benefits of FT8-style encoding but letting you actually type messages back and forth. feels more like the old PSK31 days where you could have a real ragchew at like -15dB SNR or whatever.

my question is whether people here actually use it regularly or if its mostly empty frequencies. i tuned around for maybe an hour on a saturday afternoon and only heard maybe 4 or 5 stations, all of them seemed to be running beacon mode rather than waiting for a QSO. compared to the FT8 watering holes which are always packed. is there a certain time or frequency thats more active, or is this just one of those modes thats cool in theory but the userbase never really materialized?

yeah the userbase thing is the real problem with JS8Call. the mode itself is genuinely clever — KN4CRD did good work on it — but youre fighting the network effect. everyone is on FT8 because everyone is on FT8. i check 40m around 14.078 sometimes on weekends and theres usually some activity but its nothing like the FT8 pileups obviously.

that said i think youre asking the right question about what you actually want from operating. if its entities and awards then FT8 is basically unbeatable. if you want something that feels more like actual communication, JS8Call scratches that itch way better. ive had some genuinely fun exchanges on there, like slow texting over HF, which sounds dumb but is kind of satisfying when the band is marginal and it still gets through. also the store-and-forward relay stuff is interesting if youre into emcomm type scenarios.

PSK31 is another option if you want a real QSO feel, the bands are quieter than they used to be but theres still a community especially on 20m around 14.070. old school but it works and fldigi makes it easy.

honestly i tried JS8Call for like two weeks and gave up, not because the mode is bad but i just couldnt find anyone to talk to at the times i operate which is usually weekday evenings. might be different for you depending on your schedule. the 40m frequency thats somewhat standard is around 7.078 i think, and theres a loose group that shows up on weekends in the afternoon.

one thing nobody mentions is the CPU hit if youre running an older machine — my laptop fans would kick on hard with JS8Call in a way that WSJT-X never does, not sure why, maybe the UI framework or something.