JS8Call quicky

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I'm a little late with a JS8Call review. But this evening I finally had time to download and install the program. First of all I copied FT8Call.ini from the "local" directory and renamed it to JS8Call.ini and (re)placed it in the new JS8Call directory. That way I didn't have to configure the program again. However propagation seems not to be very well. Or at the moment I called there were not many users? I seem to have a almost solid HF path on 20m with F1ABL, he's always giving me a report. Then I made a round 20-30-40-80-160m. Not many around not even on 40m. I noticed the reports and conversations are all stored per band, very nice. The ALLCALL? is replaced by the BEACON. That way you can always check who did give a report and heard you. You can see the calls that hear you with a star before their call in the heard list. At least I got a report from PJ7DH Derek from Sint Maarten on 20m, a nice distance. Although signal was low, but that doesn't matter with JS8Call. Since frequencies are quit very low signals are still decoded. Excellent for QRP, mobile and portable digital use.

Another feature for portable use is the sync time manually. I tried to figure out how it worked but
since I didn't see any signal I couldn't do any sync, at least not on a signal.But I'm shure it will work in a emergency situation. You need to activate the window "show time drift controls" to see this feature.

I really like the configurability of this software. And it is still being developed. Of course it is not a DX program or mode and it is not for log filling. I've been playing with it while portable and it worked very well. You can make contact even under difficult circumstances and instantly see who is hearing you. There might not always be a operator at the other side but then there are possebilities enough to play with. And while playing with JS8Call switched over to 40m again.....then this happened:

 VK7BO Alan from Tasmania (Australia) did give me a report! Yes, that's from the other side of our globe.

Yellow 20m, Blue 40m, Pink 80m JS8 spots. Did I mention bad propagation before?? Something about JS8Call not a mode for DX? Well....

More info on the official JS8Call site: http://js8call.com