so ive been running FT8 for about a year now and yeah its great for working new grids and all that but honestly it feels more like a video game than ham radio sometimes. click click click, logged, next. i started poking around JS8Call last month because i wanted to actually like... talk to someone on HF without the phone patches and all that SSB ragchew stuff that my old radio doesnt do great with.

JS8Call is interesting but i cant figure out if anyone is actually on it. i tune around 14.078 or wherever the watering hole is supposed to be and sometimes i see a few traces but nobody ever seems to respond when i call. is there a time of day thing or is the mode just kind of dying off? i know its built on the FT8 codec but slower and you can type actual messages which is what i want.

also been messing with PSK31 a little on 20m and that actually gets responses, slower to find someone but when you do its a real qso. curious what other people are using when they want weak signal capability but also an actual exchange beyond signal report and grid square

JS8Call definitely has a smaller crowd than FT8 but its not dead. the activity tends to cluster around specific nets - there's a few EMCOMM groups that use it regularly and some just casual operators on weekends. 14.078 is right but honestly i've had better luck on 40m in the evenings, like 7.078, there seems to be more consistent activity there at least in my region.

the thing people dont realize is JS8Call has this heartbeat feature where you can just beacon and other stations pick it up passively, so even if nobody responds directly you might start seeing your callsign show up in other peoples buffers and then you get a call back later. takes some patience. i ran it for about three weeks before i had my first real back and forth qso with someone and now i probably use it more than FT8 for actual communication.

PSK31 is solid too, never totally goes away. if you want true ragchewing on weak signal its probably still the best balance of actual conversational speed and decent sensitivity. WSPR is another rabbit hole if you just want to see where your signal is going without anyone having to be on the other end.

yeah FT8 is a bit soulless honestly, i said it. great mode, incredible engineering, but watching those little colored bars stack up isnt what got me into this hobby. i bounced around a lot of the digital modes and ended up mostly on RTTY for contests because theres still good activity there and at least it feels like operating.

never really gave JS8Call a fair shot tbh, might have to try it again. last time i loaded it up the interface confused me and i kind of gave up