It’s not a net. It’s not a ragchew. It’s not even on the air. The Eyeball QSO Party is a welcoming room on Zoom where hams from different countries simply show up. Once a week, they share their opinions, their experiences and even images on their computer screens. It could be a view of their treasured vintage rigs, their radio-controlled planes, astronomy gear or websites about the events in the news.

The QSO Party's host, Hugh Owen, KA3TTW, said he created the room during the pandemic to help ease isolation brought on by cancellation of club meetings, hamfests and even social morning coffees. The concept is simple, he said: People show up. Some are as local as the Washington, D.C. area where Hugh lives. Sometimes they're dropping by from Canada, Luxembourg, Great Britain or even Argentina.

Although getting on the air is why so many hams got their licenses to begin with, this off-air QSO Party still fills a need. Hugh told Newsline [quote] “This does have the big advantage of people being face-to-face and people can share things on their screens.” [Endquote] So every Monday, it happens starting at 1700 UTC between March 9th and November 2nd; and at 1600 UTC the rest of the year. :

Best of all, propagation is never an issue. Everyone gets a Five-Nine.

To join the party, send an email to eyeballqsoparty - that’s one word - at gmail.com. (eyeballqsoparty@gmail.com) There is also a groups.io reflector where you can visit and subscribe. Find the link in the text version of this week's newscast at arnewsline.org

[DO NOT READ: https://groups.io/g/EyeballQSOParty ]