so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah it works great for chasing DX and filling in grid squares but honestly it feels more like a video game than a radio contact. you get the grid, log it, done. theres no actual conversation happening.

started messing around with JS8Call last week and its a totally different vibe. slower obviously but you can actually type something to the other person and they respond with words. had a 20 minute back and forth with a guy in finland on 40m last night running like 15 watts into a dipole and the whole thing just felt more like... radio? if that makes sense.

my question is whether people are actually using JS8Call regularly or if its kind of a ghost town outside of certain times. i can hear some activity on 14.078 but its hit or miss. also tried the relay/store-forward stuff but havent fully figured that out yet. does anybody run JS8Call nets or is it mostly random calling?

not trying to bash FT8, i still use it, just wondering if the JS8Call crowd is alive and worth investing time into learning the software better

JS8Call is definitely alive but yeah you kinda have to know when to look. there are nets, the HF Winlink crowd sometimes overlaps, and there's a reasonably active group on 40m in the evenings at least in north america. the heartbeat feature helps a lot once you understand it — your station just beacons out every so often and other JS8Call stations log hearing you even if nobody responds directly.

the store and forward thing is actually pretty cool for emcomm purposes, some of the ARES groups around here have been experimenting with it as a backup when normal channels are down. it aint fast but it works when bands are garbage.

i get what you mean about FT8 feeling like a video game. i still use it for DX but i turned off the auto-sequencer because at least manually clicking feels like im doing something. PSK31 is another one worth revisiting if you want actual ragchew over digital, though you need a slightly better signal than FT8 obviously.

yeah js8call has a bit of a learning curve with all the message types but once it clicks its pretty satisfying. i run it on 20m mostly and theres usually somethign happening mid afternoon on weekdays of all times, not sure why. also the @ALLCALL and @HB stuff confused me for a while but its basically just how the network propagates mesages around without direct connects.

one thing tho — if your waterfall is busy with FT8 traffic make sure youre not accidentally parking on an FT8 frequency, js8call will just get stomped. 14.078 is the usual spot but check the js8call.group site for current activity maps