so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah its great for racking up contacts and working DX i never thought id touch with my 100w and a wire antenna in the backyard. but its basically just exchanging signal reports and grid squares right, theres not really a conversation happening there. i started poking around with JS8Call after seeing it mentioned on here a few times and i think i understand what its trying to do but im having trouble finding anyone to actually talk to on it. been monitoring 14.078 and a couple other spots and mostly silence or like one or two guys doing relay stuff.

my question is — is JS8Call just kind of dead in terms of activity or am i doing something wrong with timing or freq selection. also does the heartbeat feature actually work well for just leaving it running passively. i dont want to just go back to FT8 clicking through log4om all day, i actually want to use this stuff to communicate not just collect grid squares. any thoughts appreciated, running an IC-7300 into a fan dipole if that matters

JS8Call activity is definitely thinner than FT8 but its not dead, you just gotta know where to look. 14.078 is the main watering hole but activity tends to cluster in certain windows — early morning and evenings in the US seem busiest at least from what ive seen. also try 7.078 if youre in North America, there's usually a decent regional crowd on 40m especially after dark.

the heartbeat thing works fine, i leave mine running when im at work and come home to see who heard me and who i heard, its kinda satisfying actually. the relay/store-and-forward stuff is genuinely clever when it works. that said i get what you mean about it feeling quiet compared to FT8, the populations are just wildly different. FT8 has like a million people on it. JS8Call is more like a small town. if you want actual back and forth text conversation its still the best weak signal option ive found short of going back to PSK31 which honestly still has a little life left in it on 14.070 area if you want something more traditional

yeah i had the same frustration when i first tried it. ended up joining a couple of the JS8Call nets which helped a lot more than just parking on frequency and hoping. there are a few scheduled ones that run weekly, worth searching the JS8Call groups.io list. once you get a few regulars in your log it becomes more interesting because you actually start recognizing callsigns and having ongoing conversations over multiple sessions which feels more like what ham radio is supposed to be imo

FT8 is fun for the DX chase dont get me wrong but sometimes i just want to tell someone my antenna fell down in the wind and have them commiserate, JS8Call lets you do that at like -15dB which is pretty wild when you think about it