so ive been running FT8 for about two years now mostly just chasing DX and filling in the log and honestly its great for that, but lately ive been feeling like its kind of... hollow? like you make the contact and thats it, there's nothing to it. heard about JS8Call from a guy at the club meeting last month and been playing with it this week and i have to say its a pretty different experience even if the signals are weaker by comparison.

the thing is im running about 50w into a end fed halfwave up about 25 feet and on 40m at night i can usually hold a keyboard QSO with guys 800-1200 miles out without much trouble, but when propagation dips even a little the decodes get spottier than FT8 would be under the same conditions. i think the sensitivity difference is something like 10dB or so? cant remember exactly. anyway the question is whether other people have found a sweet spot - like what power level and antenna situation makes JS8Call actually reliable enough to use for emcomm type stuff or even just ragchewing without it falling apart every other exchange

also been meaning to try PSK31 again, havent touched it since like 2015, wondering if theres still any activity on the usual frequencies or if everyone just moved to FT8 and called it a day

the sensitivity gap between JS8Call and FT8 is real, JS8 is roughly -24dB or so versus FT8's -21dB under ideal conditions but that's in normal speed mode, there's also a fast and turbo mode that trade off sensitivity for message throughput and those are closer to what you'd see with PSK31 honestly. for what youre describing - 50w and an EFHW at 25ft - that's actually a pretty reasonable setup for it. 40m at night should work fine for regional stuff.

the emcomm angle is interesting and a few groups are actually using JS8Call for exactly that, the store-and-forward relay capability is what makes it worth the sensitivity tradeoff for that use case. you can pass messages through intermediary stations which FT8 just doesn't do at all. not apples to apples.

PSK31 still has activity but you have to know where to look and when. 14.070 area on 20m still gets some takers especially weekends, but yeah its thinned out a lot. RTTY contesting still pulls decent numbers a few times a year if you want to scratch that text-mode itch with more action.

yeah i went through the same thing with FT8, great mode, fills the log fast, but after a while you realize youve had zero actual contact with any of those people lol. js8call scratched that itch for me for a while. i run it on 20m and 40m and the activity is honestly hit or miss depending on time of day. mornings on 20m ive had some decent ragchews going.

one thing that helped me was bumping power up to 100w - i know thats not huge but the difference versus 50w was noticeable in terms of how often i was getting full message exchanges without repeats. also the antenna matters more than people think for a conversational mode because you need sustained copy not just occasional bursts like FT8 where even partial decodes can complete the exchange.

dont sleep on FT4 either if you want something between FT8 and a real conversation - still contest-y but the timing is different and for some reason i find it more satisfying than FT8 even though its basically the same deal