QSL Cards

I take many comments said on QRZ with a grain of salt. I think many of the opinions and comments ruin the hobby, but that’s me and everyone is entitled to their thoughts. But I am not here to dwell on those individuals who try to ruin the hobby, but to take a stand and talk about QSLing, or the art of trading QSL cards after the QSO (contact) is made.

I used Gennady at UX5UO Print to create my design, which I put together. I then sent my images and ideas to Gennady and after a few e-mails back and forth we finally agreed on a design for my QSL cards.

Compared to other QSL services I looked at and compared, UX5UO was a bit higher, but the quality of the card and print is worth the cost. The funny thing is many hams get cheap when it comes to cards. Maybe this is a lost art of the hobby, but it is one that really got me interested back in the late 1970s and early 1980s when my father, N6SV was still involved. Honestly, it makes no difference if you hand write your own QSL card on a 4×6 index card or pay a service to print them for you. Each card is unique to it’s assigned callsign.

There are some outlines to follow when QSLing, being new to this aspect, now that I have cards I hve decided to take the most expensive route after 2 years of exchanging QSL vie LotW and eQSL, two online services that don’t require a physical card to be exchanged in order to consumate the 2way exchange.

I now have 105 QSOs logged since July, 2007 and am running about 50% when it comes to exchanging electronic QSOs via eQSL. On Thursday I started filling out QSL cards, like the ones you see above and addressing envelopes using MS Word. I am also including a SASE, so it takes very little effort on the part of the receipient to send a return QSL card. I don’t know how successful this will be, but as I mentioned this IS the most expensive route, but one that should also yield the best results.

I can understand the worries of increasing postage and the amount of money involved if you are running in the tens of thousands of QSOs after years of ham radio. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me that is not the case and this is one of the aspects of the hobby that I thoroughly enjoy. Of course any QSL card I get will be answered.