School is over for Karen, my teacher and XYL. She is nursing a broken arm from a fall in the house. We have floor tiles that settle that are easy to trip over if you don't watch it. We both didn't notice it until it was too late. So she is on the mend and we are still social distancing as the summer moves forward. The beautiful Summer weather and our exhaustion with social distancing is causing the virus to spike here as our population attempts to get back to normal. A reminder that we are not out of the woods yet and have to continue to be careful.
The QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo is also moving at a rapid pace. The ARRL has partnered with us to make us an "ARRL Sanctioned Hamfest" that will result in lots of publicity. Our staff is up to five people including me to get this show opened on August 8th at 0100 Zulu, with Dr. Scott Wright, K0MD's keynote speech. I can't wait. We are still selling booths knowing the many of our favorite ham radio vendors will sit this one out waiting to see how successful we will be. Our Sponsors are great and are working to promote this event and getting their exhibit hall booths set up. I said to one that we will be a success just from the over 70 speakers that will present on the two days of the event and the existing exhibitors who did not hesitate to support this effort. I respectfully ask you to sign up for your free ticket as registration numbers are an important confidence builder to sponsors and speakers.
Here is where I need some help on August 8th and 9th.
I am arranging "talk in channels" during the Expo using Echo-link, D-Star, System Fusion, Allstar, IRLP, DMR, and P25. I think that I have the DMR, D-Star, System Fusion and Allstar covered. I would like to have Echolink, IRLP, and P25 "talk groups" available. Any ideas?
I will also need
net control operators on those talk groups to answer questions from a FAQ that I will prepare to help people around the virtual conference hall.
If you would like to volunteer, please click on this link:
https://bit.ly/3ibEQfx to sign up.
If you have other ideas on how to create an on-the-air presence, please reply to this message. I am open to suggestions.
The name of this post is called "sidewalk EME" because that is exactly what my guest this week, Doug Millar, K6JEY, does to work DX by bouncing signals off the moon. You see, Doug does not have a lot of yard to do EME on 10 GHz. So he assembles his 8 foot satellite dish and 10 GHz rig on the sidewalk in front of his condo in Southern California. He demonstrates that a determined amateur radio operator can make a contact from just about anyplace. I hope that you enjoyed this QSO Today as much as I did making it.
Thanks for listening. Stay safe and be careful out there. 
