JS8Call QSO party this weekend

The JS8Call site announced the first JS8Call QSO party this weekend. Not a contest but a free party. No logs to send in. No prizes. Information exchange is all free.

We have done this in the past with FSQ and APRS messenger. But JS8Call is complete different software with elements from FT8, FSQ and APRS messenger. Is see a change, at least here in Europe, from using the software for chat mode to just another propagation research tool. It would be nice to see more people behind the keyboard this upcoming weekend. I think that one of the problems with JS8Call is that there are a lot of options (and features) that are not completely clear to the average public. I name two: how to send a message that will create a popup on the other side? How to correctly use a relay? To me it is completely unknown how a message is received at the other side. I've been testing with two digimode setups PE4BAS and PE4BAS/P a few weeks ago so I could test some commands to see what happens but still every new beta software things change...

I'm curious how this party will evolve since there are no real rules except that you need to "chat" and exchange info. I think the next party should have as rule a minimal information exchange to get into the log as far as the participating station is logging. So, I decide for myself to log a complete QSO only if I have at least:

- a signal report (SIG)
- a name (OP)
- QTH and/or GRID

additionally I would like to have info about RIG, PWR, ANT and WX. Abbreviations that can be found on the internet and that are normal to use at amateurradio contacts.

Another shortcoming is that from all Windows versions it seems JS8Call is only working on W10. I don't know if it is working on older Windows versions? But if so....it could be a good time to try Linux Mint for starters. You can easily find free software on the internet that modify your computer to a multiboot system and install Linux as second OS. Since I have W10 I have no need to but I have a laptop that has 3 (!) operating systems and they work without any problem. JS8Call will work on several Linux distributions without any problem as far as I know!

Update 19-Okt-2018:
It seems JS8Call is working well on other Windows versions as well. Hopefully there are even more HAM operators that will try this software after reading this.
A quick guide on how to operate JS8Call has just been updated and can be found on the JS8Call official website: http://js8call.com/guides/

Video by OH8STN Julian