Are 'QSL Cards' still in vogue?

[David G4EBT]

I've been furtling about in some drawers in a spare bedroom that was my 'radio shack' I've just come across some QSL cards dating back to the late 70s/early 80s when I was active on air. (I lived in South Yorkshire back then). I used a Trio TS830 transceiver into a home-brew copy of a G4MH 'Mini-Beam' on a rotator, which gave a good account of itself. I've attached scans of a few of the more interesting cards that I received, from places such as Indonesia, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Zambia, Kenya, Jordan, El Salvador, and so forth. Most were on 21MHz - El Salvador (on 27 Oct 1982) was on 28 MHz. I wondered to what extent sending and receiving QSL cards is still in vogue? Also, I wonder to what extent amateurs bother to keep a log for their own interest nowadays, given that there's not been a mandatory requirement to do so for more than a decade?

Back in those pre-internet days, I found it quite exciting at the time, till the penny dropped that anyone else sat in the chair that I was sitting in, using the same equipment that I was using, at the same time that I was on air, would achieve exactly the same results. So really - interesting though it was at the time, and requiring knowledge as to what bands to be on and when, it didn't really involve any great skill beyond twiddling a few knobs and pressing the PTT, so the novelty started to wear off. In a word, 'posh CB'.

[dave walsh]

I don't know if they are in vogue/use David or if there is an "e" alternative now. I never applied for a license so didn't use them when they were much prized by operators but I have rescued a number over the years, mainly when it was a "silent key" situation directly or otherwise. I used to be quite shocked to see cards, award certificates [WAC] and Trophys simply thrown out and not valued re the personal or historical associations but this often happens more generally in society.

I noticed a few years back, though, that QSL Cards were on auction sites [what isn't?] at fairly high prices. Maybe they've gained recognition in themselves, they are large stamps with built in info in a way, or else it's just the boom in anything that appears to be "Retro"

Dave W

[Radiocruncher]

Hi David. Yes QSL cards are still very much in vogue. I dispensed a number of pre addressed envelopes with the manager for my M1 call prefix and I get a wad of cards through from the RSGB bureau every couple of months. I was very active on the contest scene a couple of years ago and most of the cards are from that era. I still enjoy looking through them all and there are some really good designs. Also it's great to receive confirmation from hard to get countries especially some of the islands that are rarely activated. You have some nice cards there and it is sometimes very difficult to get heard in the pileups that tend to happen when a rare station is operating so no an easy feat. There are EQSL's now which are very popular especially with those using electronic log books and data modes which often instantly generate an EQSL card. I moved just under 2 years ago and haven't updated my card yet but it can be seen on my QRZ profile. Search for M1GRA.

I have attached a couple of pictures of some cards that arrived last week. Mostly from 2014 so it can take a while!

Regards

Graham

[G4YVM David]

Eqsl cards are okay but still find a card one through the post quite thrilling. But i still find radio communication thrilling...posh CB indeed!

David
G4YVM

[Radiocruncher]

Totally agree David. EQSL's are nice and quick but I often get a card as well which is much nicer. I need to sort my antennas then look out!. I have been on air occasionally but can't seem to get enough time these days. I was hoping to participate in the SPDX contest this weekend but my lad is coming to stay. Might have the odd go though when nobody's looking.

Graham
M1GRA

[dsergeant]

As to your second question David, anybody who seriously chases DX or enters contests by definition will be keeping a logbook - otherwise how on earth can you prove what you have worked, and if you get a QSL for a QSO you won't be able to send a confirmation if you never wrote down the details. Here I don't log chat type QSOs on 2m FM but everything else is logged, initially paper logbook but then in the electronic log, all 75k of them.

As for QSLs, paper cards are going somewhat out of fashion but there are many who still do send and collect them. ARRL Log Book of the World and eQSL do it all without need for a paper card, and if you work DXPeditions etc and want paper cards you can now do that with the OQSL system pioneered by ClubLog which avoids having to send an outgoing card and return postage.

73 Dave G3YMC

[SiriusHardware]

I made a conscious decision NOT to exchange QSLs quite early on and always tried to make that clear when in QSO, but sometimes when the contact was brief or difficult there wasn't time to get that across so I would occasionally be contacted by my QSL manager asking whether I wanted my QSL cards or not.

In the end I had to ask him to either discard or Return To Sender any cards he received for me, which, as I'm sure you can imagine, didn't go down too well.

[russell_w_b]

Haaa! I got my 'A' licence, ordered 300 QSL cards -

- and then moved house!

[Peter.N.]

I have a pile of QSL cards from the '80's from novice operators in the Netherlands for contacts on 2m FM from my location here on the Dorset/Devon border, something which is unlikely to happen nowadays.

I also have a few VK and stateside cards but they would be reproducible the Dutch ones probably not.

I frequently worked into the early morning the dutch stations, (much to my wife's annoyance) in the days when there was a station on every channel on 2m and so many stations on the air that you were bound to have a good path to some, sadly no longer.

I think they are probably the rarest cards. I don't use the radio all that often now so don't have any QSL cards.

Peter G0HET

[G4YVM David]

All my early cards, from my G8YJI days as well, went in the bin. I regret that now.

D

[Aub]

Originally Posted by David G4EBT

the penny dropped that anyone else sat in the chair that I was sitting in, using the same equipment that I was using, at the same time that I was on air, would achieve exactly the same results. So really - interesting though it was at the time, and requiring knowledge as to what bands to be on and when, it didn't really involve any great skill beyond twiddling a few knobs and pressing the PTT, so the novelty started to wear off. In a word, 'posh CB'.

I think you're were doing yourself down there David. Just think of all those hours studying for the RAE and then more hours studying morse, to get your licence. That gave you the right to "sit in that chair" - you earned it. You obviously got fed up with it, as a lot of people do with hobbies, but it was much more than posh CB.

73's

Aub

[Phil G4SPZ]

Unless you are into amateur radio in a 'competitive' way - a concept totally alien to me in what is a technical hobby, not a sport - in my humble opinion, QSL cards are utterly pointless. I have never collected them, and found sending them a chore, particularly as in my experience the majority of foreign stations didn't bother to reciprocate.

Each to his own, though.

[David G4EBT]

Originally Posted by Aub

I think you're were doing yourself down there David. Just think of all those hours studying for the RAE and then more hours studying morse, to get your licence. That gave you the right to "sit in that chair" - you earned it. You obviously got fed up with it, as a lot of people do with hobbies, but it was much more than posh CB.

When I said 'anyone' sat in my chair' I should perhaps have said 'any other amateur' rather than just anyone at all. I didn't so much get 'fed up' with it as lost interest. I did find it an annoyance that at weekends there were often contests on, which bring out the very worst in anti-social behaviour, and DXpeditions too, with so called 'pile-ups' of amateurs squawking over the top of each other as though lives depended on it. Basically, just QRM to my mind.

As to the RAE, I'd already been doing three nights a week at evening classes for two years covering 11 subjects for a professional qualification, and in the final year that dropped to two nights plus a case study, so I used the extra night to do the RAE. It was the old 'essay style' RAE so for anyone who could put pen to paper wasn't very taxing - part B - the technical part, was just answer any five of eight questions. It met the requirements called for, to not make a nuisance of ourselves to other spectrum users, but there was no practical training and I felt ill prepared to become involved technically in the hobby, which of course the RAE isn't - or wasn't back then, intended to do. Much better now.

Initially I took out a 'B' licence, (G8JIN), and thought that the fellow amateurs at the local radio club (Grimsby at the time) would perhaps congratulate me. No - not a bit of it - I was told that without the Morse I was only 'half an amateur' and to become as 'proper' amateur I had to 'earn' a Full licence by passing the Morse test, the inference being that I was 'lazy'. Huh?

Fine - I went to a kindly elderly local amateur I'd heard of who would teach me Morse, so I paid him a call. He said 'if you come for an hour after work two nights a week, I'll get you through the test in 3 months, but if you miss a night, don't bother coming back'. All he asked for in return was a trip to the Coast Guard Station when - 3 months later, I took and passed the test. In and out in ten minutes.

Nice to break into the weekly 80 Metre net of the local 'klarsay' bigots and announce my G4EBT callsign. When they said 'We thought you were a klarsbee' I said 'I was till today - I've just passed the Morse Test - a little thing in a busy week, so I'm 'whole' now. I got quite a frisson from giving them a 'black eye' metaphorically!

Funny old hobby really.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by David G4EBT

I got quite a frisson from giving them a 'black eye' metaphorically!

Funny old hobby really.

All hobbies involving clubs are the same, because they're a microcosm of human nature, even amongst the common ground that brought them together in the first place: radio clubs, camera clubs, music societies, brass bands... There's always the club bore; always those who depend on the cheque-book; always those who skim the surface and gloss over the intricacies; always those who look down upon the ones, always there, who look up...

Amateur radio merely presents the opportunity for promulgation of these traits beyond the meeting room.

[G4XWDJim]

When I passed my morse test I was keen to have a few CW contacts every evening to develop a small amount of skill on the key so was keen to collect a few QSL cards at that time.

A good many years ago I sent my RSGB QSL manager half a dozen evelopes with first class stamps. I wonder what happens to them when there are no cards arriving. Like David I've been QRT for ages and even before that lost interest in cards.

The only one I was really pleased to get was this one from John Brown G3EUR the designer of the wartime B2 spy set and other devices.

I was thinking only yesterday about chucking my cards away. I have about 50 QSL cards I've saved for some reason so do we have a card collector on here. I'd be happy to pass them on if someone would like them before they meet the bin.

Jim

[G8HQP Dave]

I somewhere still have the QSL cards I collected when I was active in the mid 1970s on 2m FM - in the old days before channels. I had a homebrew system using a QQV03/10 and a couple of crystals. Then I made the mistake of buying a Kenwood TR9130 to get on the new channels and as a quick way of getting on SSB. Nothing wrong with the TR9130, but overnight I had turned from a radio amateur into an appliance operator so the fun disappeared and within a few months I stopped operating. I realised that for me operating was merely a way of testing and, to some extent, 'showing off' what I had designed and built.

If I ever become active again (which I still hope to do) it will be with a mainly homebrew system and probably something like 7Mhz or 70MHz AM. I still have a stock of blank QSL cards but not sure I would bother with them unless someone is really keen to get one.

No point for what the licence is for "technical work and experimentation" (to paraphrase, a lot) I go on the air a few times a year to keep up my operating practice and to try out a new aerial or other thing. Never done a stamp stamp stamp contest, I can't see the point (and is it allowed under the UK licence rules?). Amateur radio might seem a bit "quaint" today but it doesn't rely on anyone else and a QSL card from a regular contact is nice thing to have, lots from a bunch of instant contacts not my idea of fun. As for e-QSL, why bother, send an email...

A bit OT, I got a hand written letter from a complete stranger today (with SAE) asking about a motorcycle I sold years ago, it was a pleasant surprise.

In summary, QSL cards in the yor where a thing to cherish as radio was hard, now it is more of a keepsake from on the air friends. Still in vogue but for different reasons than in the past.

[electronicskip]

I have a couple of hundred from my CB days, but not had any now for many a year.
We used to call them eyeball cards though ,

[dsergeant]

A lot of negative opinion here.... As an active radio amateur I enjoy QSOs, whether they be one to one rag chews, contests or chasing a rare dxpedition. 500+ QSOs in a contest weekend gives me a lot of satisfaction, and with a QRP station quite some achievement. We can moan at operating standards, rubber stamp QSOs etc as much as we like but the fact remains that amateur radio is still a widely appreciated hobby - and in some cases such as Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Tsunami and even 911 amateur radio showed the rest of the world what it can do. And you can even get a few QSLs for your efforts as well.

Come on chaps, get on the air and enjoy it rather than moan.

73 Dave G3YMC

[dodgy-dxer]

Originally Posted by dsergeant

Come on chaps, get on the air and enjoy it rather than moan.

Well said Dave!

If YOU have lost interest then find something new to do and don't keep knocking something you have lost interest in - it gets very boring

73 Fred
G4BWP