This sort of follows on from my semi-satirical "real" ham radio post. I first heard about QSO1 while lurking on the Brandmeister Worldwide talkgroup. It's a very nifty app to be sure, but sometimes I do wonder if I'm fooling myself. Like what separates the average QSO1 experience from, say, Discord, besides worse audio and fewer text chat features.
Yes, you are potentially transmitting over any number of repeaters on RF, but if QSO1 becomes the path of least resistance for rag chewers like myself and everyone ends up using it, what makes it "real" ham radio?
A big part of ham ratio for me is figuring out the antenna and signal propagation — having a QSO is a nice proof that I got the system working. How much does QSO1 work out-of-the-box?
It's pretty seamless, honestly. You make an account and enter any details for the various networks (Echolink/D-star stuff etc)