so ive been running FT8 for about two years now and yeah its great for working stations and building up the logbook but honestly it feels like im just clicking buttons and watching a waterfall. theres no real contact happening, just signal reports and grid squares. someone at my local club mentioned JS8Call and i finally sat down and read about it last weekend.

the idea of actually being able to send short messages back and forth, or even relay through other stations, sounds way more interesting to me than another 73 into the void. but i'm reading that the weak signal performance isnt quite as good as FT8 and obviously the bandwidth and timing are different. im running a IC-7300 into a fan dipole, usually 50w, mostly 40 and 20m. anyone actually use JS8Call regularly and find it worth it or does the slower speed and slightly worse sensitivity make it annoying compared to just running FT8

also tangentially — i tried PSK31 maybe a year ago and found the software setup kind of a headache, is that just me or does everyone find the older digital modes more fiddly to get going compared to WSJT-X

JS8Call is genuinely fun but you have to go in with the right expectations. it's not FT8 where you can work 30 stations in an hour, the pace is slow and sometimes you'll call around for 20 minutes and hear nothing. but when you do get a qso going it actually feels like talking to someone. ive had some good ragchews on 40m late at night, nothing fancy but better than 73 de grid square and done.

the sensitivity thing is real — FT8 decodes at like -24dB SNR and JS8Call is more like -18 or so depending on the speed setting, there are a few different speed modes and the slower ones do better but then its even more of a crawl. for your setup with 50w and a decent dipole you'll hear plenty of stations i would think. 40m is probably your best bet, theres usually some activity around 7078 kHz.

on the PSK31 question, yeah the old software like DigiPan or even the built in stuff in older logging programs can be a bit of a pain. fldigi is what most people use now and once you get the audio levels right its actually not bad. the problem is the mode itself has kind of died off compared to what it used to be, might spend a while tuning around before you find much action.

honestly i went the opposite direction, started with JS8Call first before i really got into FT8, and now i kind of go back and forth depending on what i feel like. if im just trying to fill in a new grid or work somewhere far away ill fire up FT8. if i want to actually do something i switch over to JS8Call. ran a little net on there a few months ago during some bad WX and the store and forward stuff actually worked pretty well for relaying messages around, which is cool from an emcomm angle even if it's just playing around.

RTTY is still my favorite though for contests, nothing like a RTTY roundup weekend. total different vibe from the weak signal stuff