so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah it works great for racking up contacts and chasing DX but honestly it feels a little hollow sometimes, like you exchange signal reports and grid squares and thats it, done, next contact. started looking into JS8Call because it supposedly lets you have real conversations in weak signal conditions and i was curious if anyone here actually uses it regularly or if its kind of a ghost town on the bands.

my setup is pretty basic, IC-7300 into a wire dipole up about 30 feet, running WSJT-X for FT8 and FT4. i tried PSK31 a while back and liked that you could actually type back and forth but propagation has to be decent and my antenna situation isnt ideal. the appeal of JS8Call is obviously that it should work down in the noise floor like FT8 does but with actual text exchange. just wondering if the activity level is there or if im gonna fire it up and find three guys on at 2am.

also curious if anyone still runs RTTY for anything other than contests, feels like that mode has kind of become contest-only at this point but maybe im wrong

JS8Call is definitely not dead but you have to know where to look and honestly have some patience. the 40m and 20m calling frequencies see decent activity, more so in the evenings my time at least. it's not FT8 levels obviously but if you sit on the waterfall for 20-30 mins during a decent propagation window youll usually see something. the conversations you can have are worth it imo, had a 45 minute back and forth with a guy in Finland last winter talking about his antenna farm, that kind of thing just doesnt happen on FT8.

the latency takes getting used to since each transmission takes longer than FT8s 15 second slots, but once you adjust your expectations its actually pretty enjoyable. think of it less like contest operating and more like a slow CW QSO. your IC-7300 and dipole setup should be totally fine for it, the mode is genuinely weak signal capable, ive made contacts with it that i wouldnt have pulled out on SSB or even PSK31.

as for RTTY yeah pretty much contest-only these days, BARTG and the big CQ RTTY events are active but outside of that its sparse. not complaining though, i love RTTY contest weekends.

tried JS8Call a few months ago and my honest take is the UI is kind of a mess compared to WSJT-X, took me a while to figure out what was actually happening on screen. but once it clicked i did manage a few solid contacts on 40m. activity was there but you have to be patient like the other guy said.

one thing i will mention is make sure your audio levels are dialed in before you transmit, i was running a little hot at first and my decodes were garbage until i sorted the ALC situation out. same issue i had when i first started with FT8 honestly, the IC-7300 USB audio can be fiddly if you havent set it up carefully.