Wow, getting back into digital modes with my recently built all-mode gobox with my Icom 7300 and FT8.  I was a previous user of JT65 about 5 years ago and then fell away.

So today in my HOA antenna restricted home, I was able to do FT8 QSOs with Cuba (getting some commie love), Puerto Rico and then New Zealand. 3000, 3500, and 6500 miles respectively. All with 100watts and a Buddipole at 18 feet on 20meters.

I’m loving FT8 for how it shows band openings that are short durations or really long skips.

Here’s the Buddipole in not ideal conditions that should piss off the hoa. That’s my neighbors house behind mine at 20 feet between the buildings.

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Try some JS8Call, too.

JS8call is awesome. You can actually rag chew rather than just collect callsugns

My son and I have had quite a few long distance QSOs - Austrailia, Japan, New Zealand, Africa, the Falklands, etc - using FT8.

My furthest FT8 QSO was with a Ukranian ham who was the chief engineer of a ship.  At the time of our QSO, his ship was off the coast of New Britain Island!

What I like the most about FT8 is that you can pull signals out of the noise!

Well I dug a little deeper into JS8 today as I have had it on, but haven't seen any activity like FT8 has, so I thought something was wrong on my end.

Well I learned today about beaconing and then I saw a CQ come across.  It took me a few tries to realize that I have to pause between text strings being sent, so I must have doubled on the ham I was chatting with.  Then I can see how its a rag chew.  So much better to get more info across. I can see this as a goto emcomm tool for HF when bands are dead.

So my digital history of use has been:
PSK31 years ago.  Didn't use much as JT65 came along.
Then used JT65 and liked that a lot, but after using FT8 and having 15 second turnarounds, its better for casual QSOs.
Now I'm onto FT8 and thx for your inputs on JS8.  I think I'll be floating between the two.

Does anyone use RTTY or PSK anymore?

My next project is to modernize my logging tools.

From MA I have had QSOs with Japan, Korea, India, Bhutan, Indonesia, NZ, Australia, Fuji, New Caledonia, Taiwan, China. Hong Kong, Shetland Islands Antartica, Tasmania,Sri Lanka, Mongolia, and many many many other places.

It really opens up the world when at the bottom of the solar cycle, or a Maunder Minimum if that is what this turns into.

Wow, that is awesome you've gotten that many distant locations.  This is week one for me on FT8.

I had to google the Maunder Minimum.  That would really be a hard time for us and for those of us in later life.  We would never have another solar cycle where we could work the world on a watt.  I remember my grandfather talking about that in the 50s/60s and if you look at the historical data they had tremendous sunspot #s.

But as they say, tough times will breed tough people.  And if we go into a prolonged down solar cycle, then I bet with the advances in the computer software and hardware, we will get better and better at communicating below the noise level for long distances.

I bought a KX3 a few weeks ago, and decided to give FT8 a go to see how it worked with low power (running 5W).
Conditions have not been wonderful, but worked right across the continent and out to HI.

In the past I have worked into (Asiatic) Russia, S. America, Cuba, Japan etc. with PSK31 running about 30W, so I would expect to be able to do the same (if not better) with FT8.

Initially I was a bit put off by the automated nature, and lack of info beyond QTH and call sign with FT8, but honestly, most people that use/used PSK31 just used macros, and got really confused if you tried to ask questions and start up a conversation. So this really isn't that different.

I have tried 15W SSB on 80m and easily managed a few hundred miles. Need to give it a go on 20 one day when it is open.

BTW if you want a QRP rig, I can recommend the KX3.

I use JTAlert. It works with WSJT-X and will highlight countries etc that are not in your log. You can then call those specific callsigns and not wait for them to CQ. It makes a world of difference.( pun intended)