so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and honestly its great for working dx and chasing grid squares but i cant shake the feeling that its more like a robot handshake than actual radio operating. like you confirm a contact and thats it, you never actually talked to anyone.

started messing with JS8Call a few weeks ago after someone on another forum mentioned it and its way more interesting to me personally but the activity levels are just... not there compared to FT8. i can sit on 40m JS8 for an hour and maybe see 3 or 4 stations. on FT8 the waterfall is wall to wall signals at almost any hour.

my question i guess is whether anyone has found good times or frequencies where JS8Call actually has decent activity, or is it just kind of a niche thing that never took off the way FT8 did. also curious if anyone uses it for anything practical like emcomm or passing traffic because it seems like it was kind of designed with that in mind.

for what its worth im running an ic-7300 into a wire dipole up about 35 feet, WSJT-X for FT8 and the JS8Call software directly for that mode, audio interface through the built in usb on the radio so no issues there.

yeah JS8Call never really hit critical mass the way FT8 did and i think thats partly because FT8 scratches the itch for most people who just want contacts in the log. JS8Call is a different animal — its slower, the timing isnt as rigid, and you can actually type a message back and forth but most hams who got into FT8 dont seem to want that, they want the efficiency.

that said i do see decent activity on 40m around 7.078 in the evenings, and 20m at 14.078 during the day can have a handful of stations depending on conditions. the JS8Call groups on facebook actually coordinate nets sometimes which helps. the relay/store-forward stuff built into it is genuinely clever for emcomm use, some ARES groups have been experimenting with it for exactly that reason but adoption is slow because everybody already knows Winlink.

if you want actual conversation via digital modes and more activity than JS8Call, PSK31 still has a small but dedicated following. old school but people actually ragchew on it. 14.070 area on 20m, you can usually find someone especially weekends.

i asked myself the same thing last year honestly. ended up just accepting FT8 for what it is — a propagation tool more than a communication mode — and then kept PSK31 around for when i actually want to type at someone. the JS8Call idea is cool and i respect what KN4CRD built but you hit the nail on the head about activity, its kind of a ghost town except for certain times.

one thing i'll say though is if weak signal stuff is what draws you to these modes, have you tried FT4 at all? its basically FT8 but faster and more suited for contest-style operating, some people find the faster exchange more satisfying even if its still just a quick contact. not really a solution to the conversation problem but just throwing it out there.