so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah its great for working new countries and all that but honestly it feels like a slot machine after a while. you just sit there clicking and watching the waterfall and theres no real communication happening. started messing around with JS8Call last month and its a totally different vibe, like you can actually type something to the other person and have a back and forth which is what i thought ham radio was supposed to be about.

thing is the JS8Call signals are obviously way stronger requirement than FT8 so youre not gonna be pulling in the same crazy DX. i ran a comparison one evening where i had WSJT-X on one screen and JS8Call on the other, same antenna, and the difference in how many stations i could hear was pretty obvious. FT8 was lighting up with stuff from europe and JS8 was mostly regional.

not complaining just curious if other people have found a workflow where they use both or if anyone has gone back to PSK31 or something and found that actually hits a sweet spot in terms of signal performance vs actual communication. i used to run PSK31 back in the day and it felt more like a real QSO even if it needed better band conditions to work.

yeah this is exactly why i never really got into FT8 that much. i mean i have it set up and i'll fire it up if the bands are terrible and i want to at least make a contact or two but its not satisfying in any real way. JS8Call scratches the itch way better for me personally. the relay/store and forward stuff is actually kinda clever too if you havent dug into that yet.

PSK31 is still alive on 20m if you look around, usually mid afternoon here on the east coast. the problem is you need decent conditions and most people seem to have migrated away from it. i keep a PSK31 window open sometimes just to see whats happening and you do still get some ragchew type contacts but its definitely not what it was in like 2008 or whatever. RTTY contesting is where i get my digital fix honestly, theres something about the sound of it that just feels right and the exchanges actually mean you had to, you know, copy something.

FT4 is worth trying if you want something between FT8 and a real QSO, its faster paced at least and you actually have to be paying attention. still no real conversation but the timing feels less like waiting for paint to dry. i use it during contests mostly.

havent tried JS8Call yet, keep meaning to. does it need a lot of CPU or is it pretty light? my shack computer is kind of old.