so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah its great for working new entities and all that but honestly after a while it starts to feel like youre just clicking a grid square not actually talking to anyone. heard about JS8Call a while back and finally got around to installing it last weekend.

first impressions are interesting. the waterfall feels familiar since its built on the same WSJT-X engine more or less, but the 15 second TX cycles and the freeform text is a completely different vibe. managed to have an actual back and forth with a guy in Colorado for like 20 minutes which... i dont think ive done that on HF in months? usually its just 599 73 and move on.

the downside that i can already see is activity levels are way lower. i was on 40m JS8 for like two hours yesterday afternoon and only decoded maybe 8 stations total. on FT8 at the same time the waterfall was absolutely packed. so the weak signal advantage is kind of pointless if nobodys there to work.

curious if anyone here actually uses JS8Call regularly or if its one of those modes that sounds great on paper but the activity just never materialized. also wondering how it compares signal-wise to something like PSK31 since im told JS8 is supposed to be good down into like -24 dB SNR territory

I use JS8Call pretty regularly, mostly for our local ARES net actually. Once you find the right frequency and time it works really well for that kind of structured but still freeform communication. The HB heartbeat beaconing feature is genuinely useful for tracking who's around without anyone having to sit there actively calling CQ.

Your SNR comparison question -- JS8Call in turbo mode is roughly comparable to FT8 sensitivity wise, but the normal and slow modes go quite a bit deeper. The tradeoff is throughput obviously, like you're not going to rag chew at -22 dB, itll just take forever. For emcomm purposes though where you might just need to pass a short message the slow mode is really impressive. I've seen it decode stuff that PSK31 would have no chance with.

The activity thing is real though. Outside of a few dedicated frequencies and specific nets you can go a long time without hearing much. 14.078 USB seems to be the most active spot on HF in my experience, especially evenings.

yeah FT8 is kind of a hollow experience after a while isnt it. i still run it for contests and chasing DXCC but i went back to PSK31 for actual conversations honestly. old mode i know but theres still plenty of activity on 20m and you can type in real time, the other person sees your words as you type them which feels way more like a conversation than any of the WSJT modes.

never really got into JS8Call but maybe ill give it another shot. last time i tried it i couldnt figure out the directed messaging stuff and kind of gave up after an hour