Diana Williams

so ive been running FT8 for about a year now mostly on 40 and 20m with a modest setup, like 25-30 watts into a wire dipole in my attic. works fine, log lots of DX, whatever. but i keep reading about JS8Call and how its supposedly better for weak signal stuff and also lets you actually have a conversation unlike FT8 which is basically just an automated exchange machine. tried JS8Call for the first time last weekend and honestly i dont know what to think. the waterfall seemed a lot less busy than FT8 which makes sense i guess since fewer people use it. made a couple contacts but it felt slow. like really slow compared to just watching FT8 rack up QSOs. my question is mostly about the weak signal performance. is JS8Call actually pulling signals out of the noise better than FT8 or is that kind of a myth? i know FT8 is rated to like -24dB SNR which already seems insane to me. does JS8Call go deeper than that or is it just different. also is there a meaningful community on JS8Call still or did most people just stick with FT8 and call it done