Are 'QSL Cards' still in vogue?

[Radio Wrangler]

I'm just freshly back from today's GMDX club annual convention.

There were presentations detailing DXpeditions to Nepal, Rodriguez Island (nr Mauritius) and Chatham Island (nr NZ). Speakers came from England, Ireland and Sweden. The Dxpeditions did not want to receive physical QSL cards, they said they had nothing to use them for.

There was a stand there with someone authorised by ARRL to check cards for the DXCC awards. I didn't see anyone availing themselves of this facility. In previous years it used to be busy.

So for contesters and DXers, the postcards do seem to be dying out.

They used to be a rather colourful aspect of the hobby, and also something that could be shown to joe public that joe public would understand.

David

[Radio Wrangler]

PS, I've just poked a button and the HF rig is on. Anyone care to name a frequency?

David

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

One of the many reasons why I keep up my licence, I have a few battery sets (I check and charge on an ad hock basis) and 'have a go' every now and then to keep up. I think the most useful set I have for an emergency is an FT817, full coverage receiver and 5W transmit (not a lot of use for any more if it all goes tits up).

And Fred, Dave, yes I agree don't knock it 'till you've tried it. I (as said) make the odd contact to brush up and have a great time having a chat, usually from the Ukraine using PSK or some other data mode.

[Phil G4SPZ]

It's a pity that the discussion has drifted so far off the original topic of QSL cards, but I think Russell summed up the situation very succinctly in his post #14.

There's a long history of amateur radio clubs becoming fragmented and splitting up acrimoniously, usually due to disagreements over contests, repeaters, licence classes, digital modes, or some other arbitrary division. The result has been a plethora of sub-groups of devotees of numerous non-compatible modes, that has reduced the number of stations below the 'critical mass' necessary to maintain the likelihood of getting a sensible reply to a CQ call.

I don't think any of the 'negative' postings were saying anything more than "tried that, didn't like it, did something else" and the evidence is the presence of so many of us licenced amateurs who nowadays get so much more pleasure from vintage radio and the people involved.

[G0HZU_JMR]

I sat the RAE when it had recently changed to multi choice and had some fun/enjoyment with it on 2m and 70cms for a couple of years. I don't think I ever bothered with QSL cards. I certainly never designed one and sent one. In those days it was all done via a QSL bureau and I never contacted my QSL manager. Maybe after all these years they are still in a file somewhere, held by a keen QSL manager, but I doubt it I passed the morse exam a few years later but I was already bored with amateur radio by then. My class A logbook is only 7 pages long and most of that was during the early days when I had just passed the test. After having to learn Morse, I did force myself to use Morse code for my first ever contact as a full licence holder. I think it was the only time I used it as a radio amateur.

Back in those days it seemed that many overseas contacts ended with the person at the other end saying "QSL via the bureau" before calling CQ again on the same transmission. I didn't bother with QSL cards as a full licence holder either but I did manage to contact Australia on 20m in the first few weeks I had the full licence. But I can only echo what David said... What did I really achieve there? Some of my gear was commercial some was homebrew or converted from other bands but anyone with a fat cheque book could have done better. It really was just posh CB but without the local fun/social factor for me...

[Junk Box Nick]

I have kept my treasured box of QSL cards - the earliest are now coming up to 50 years ago from my days as an SWL.

It was exciting to receive them. A good number of local amateurs were happy to indulge a schoolboy whose reports that they could be heard on topband a couple of miles away on a one-valver was hardly exciting news. However, I got invited to see a few shacks and given plenty of encouragement. I only remember kindness from those early days. As I moved on to a better receiver the DX bug bit and the wall of my bedroom was steadily covered with cards featuring exotic prefixes. If hearing a station from Senegal or Brazil on 80m was exciting, receiving a card all the way from these tropical climes doubled the thrill.

When I gained my licence funds were somewhat limited and I operated with old and relatively unsophisticated equipment that was progressively modified and improved. Mainly active on VHF and UHF I never used more than 3 watts of SSB or CW on 144MHz and so the QSLs confirming contacts with Sweden, Switzerland and southern France amongst other places were highly prized - they were proof (to me at any rate) of considerable achievement.

The down-side of those days was the length of time it took for the cards to arrive via the bureau system. It would often be months before they arrived and so for extra-special contacts it was sometimes agreed to QSL direct.

Another aspect was the fascinating designs of the cards varying from the plain standard card where the station call-sign had been stenciled through the letterpress types with a couple of spot colours to the full colour and very sophisticated. One card I now recognise as being a custom design screen-printed onto a cloth surfaced card with the contact details on the rear - very expensive forty-odd years ago.

I designed my own QSL card using a photograph I had taken of a local landmark and had them offset litho printed by a friend who was in the trade. The nature of the process meant there was little difference in the price of a couple of hundred and a thousand. They arrived in two packets - I still have one packet though the cards are long out of date - vintage 'postcard view' items in their own right now!

[David G4EBT]

One interesting aspect when looking back through QSL cards from European countries from the 70s and 80s, is that some of those countries no longer exist!

For example, Yugoslavia, where stations who gave their callsigns phonetically invariably used the term 'Yellow Uniform', but the Balkan wars put paid to that countries existence as a single entity. Then there was the remarkable 'Velvet Revolution' of 1989 in what was then Czechoslovakia, which freed itself from the USSR with no loss of life, and later split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Then the same year, the Berlin Wall came down and East Germany - then known as the 'German Democratic Republic' - was later re-united with West Germany.

Amateurs who were active prior to 1989 will recall that all QSL cards on the 'other side of the Iron Curtain', had to be routed to and from P.O. Box 88, Moscow. Also, Russian Amateurs invariably operated via Club stations, and give them their due, their equipment was home-brew, and for the most part, sounded good on air.

So, QSL cards from that era do tell a fascinating story about socio-economic and geo-political aspects of that part of the world in the quite recent past.

As to 2 Metre contacts with Holland, when I live near Grimsby in the 70s, I often used to drive up onto Caistor hill for an hour or so after work, and use a 'Liner 2' 10 Watt SSB transceiver and a 'halo' antenna to work station in Rotterdam. No great feat - as has been said, back then, though there were many fewer amateurs, activity levels were far higher and I had a clear take off across the North Sea.

Enjoyable, but we didn't consider it any great shakes and I don't think either end bothered sending QSL cards.

[Terry_VK5TM]

I have never sent or received QSL cards either in my 40ish years of being licensed. Not from any direct decision about doing it or not, but because of the very intermittent nature of being on-air, plus normally moving around from one place to the next every 18 months or so when I was younger (itchy feet syndrome back then).

A couple of posts have mentioned binning old QSL cards or what to do with them - does the RSGB not have an archive of QSL cards?

The WIA here in Oz has an archive and they regularly request cards to add to it.

As David above mentions, there are cards from countries that no longer exist that surely are of historic value to an organisation/museum that deals with socio-economic and geo-political development through the ages.

Terry

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Phil G4SPZ

'...but I think Russell summed up the situation very succinctly in his post #14.'

<SNIP>

Originally Posted by Phil G4SPZ

'I don't think any of the 'negative' postings were saying anything more than "tried that, didn't like it, did something else" and the evidence is the presence of so many of us licenced amateurs who nowadays get so much more pleasure from vintage radio and the people involved.'

I ought to redress the balance here and say that There's always the helpful amateurs who will answer your question without fail; always those who take the time to explain, patiently; always those who welcome you irrespective of your aims; always those who sacrifice their own time to get you to where you want to be...

Amateur radio is a broad church, as the letters in the RadCom assert each month.

[Chris G0EYO]

Well said Dave. It is only a hobby after all. If you no longer like it or understand it then don't do it but don't moan about it.
Chris G0EYO

[Peter.N.]

I concur. I still monitor 2m and occasionally go on HF but it seems that the majority of G4s that came into ham radio through CB as did I, have given up on it now. It was a lot of hard work getting a license especially if you didn't have a electronic background and the Morse was hard work for all of us, such a shame that so many have turned their back on it.

Peter

[G4YVM David]

I like rhe G3EUR card of the RSARS. My early G8 cards were RSARS ones like that. That takes me back.

Well i have ssome new cards and still enjoy them. But then i still get a huge thrill from radio...all hf and all cw. Im chairman of a club and well over half the memebrs dont go on air. Most of the others go on rarely. Very few of us are active and loving it. Such a shame really.

I did contact the old chairman of my first club, Dudley, who has moved down here but hes not active or interested any more. I was hoping to recruit a new club member!

Back to cards thiugh...despite full colour my favourite have always been the one or two colour cards with a large font callsign snd not much else. Very basic but evocative of simpler and less affluent times when success came after effort not cash.

D

[Radio Wrangler]

Very few have intentionally turned their back on amateur radio, but many have discovered other interests and moved to those.

Amateur radio hasn't changed much. There is still a number of great people with the inevitable number of grumps. Grumps are noisier, so it's easy to lose sense of their true proportion. The technical level has fallen. Few people build their own radios, but some actually know how their Japanese black boxes work and can fix them.

What has changed dramatically is the world outside amateur radio.

I've never been a QSL-er. It seemed illogical to need to back up something as modern as a radio contact with something as old as a postcard. Asking someone for a card felt like saying "I don't trust you, Please prove that you're the real VK3xxx" which seems insulting. I never bothered with the sort of awards you had to apply for, they didn't feel like an award.

I keep an honest logbook. I can look through it and see where i've worked.

For a club station, though, an array of cerds makes a colourful display that can be explained to visitors at special event stations.

David

['LIVEWIRE?']

I've never had an amateur licence, but have quite a few QSL cards from Broadcast and Amateur stations received when i used to be an active SWLer back in the 60s & 70s, including one from an Argentinian Amateur operator, a number from low-power tropical band broadcasters in S. America(all received using a homebuilt SW Rx from a PW design, and an indoor aerial in my ground floor flat, btw., and one from 'DC1' who was operating, along with a number of others back in the 70s. At one time I was a member of the ISWL (SW-5975, IIRC)

[FrankB]

I still use them when I work a station.

A number of years back (like 30-40?) I rescued a pile of QSL cards from the garbage can of a ham who was an SK. They dated back into the 20's! One was of the USN carrier Langley, during one of its 3 major modifications. I showed it to my oldest ham buddy & Elmer,W7SS, CWO USN Ret, (now also SK), he remarked that it was mod #2 and he knew the Chief radio op on the ship who had signed the card. That was so cool! (There were also several from JA stations also, just prior to WW2.)
I also bought a stack of QSL cards at a 2nd hand store about 2 months back. Must have been abt. 200 or so. Most from the 60's & 70's.
I look at the old ones as part of world history, and the history of Ham radio. Its quite a thrill for me to find a card from a country that no longer exists.

[David G4EBT]

Back on the theme of how QSL cards from yesteryear give an insight into geopolitical changes and upheaval in Eastern Europe, I've attached pics of a few more QSL cards from the late 70s/early 80s, from countries such as the then Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, German Democratic Republic, along with Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia.

That was still in the 'Cold War' era and few could have imagined that within a decade or so, the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia would no longer exist, and that by 2004, they, and other Eastern European countries who were formerly part of the USSR would be members of the EU. I mention that only as an indication of the role of QSL cards as a historical record of quite momentous changes over the span of two or three decades - not with any political overtones.

I hope they're of interest, and as I said at the outset, I wonder if quite so many are still sent nowadays?
(My logbook of that era shows almost 100% of contacts attracted a QSL card - even within the UK).

[Keith]

If nothing else they brighten up the walls of the shack and are a great alternative for redecoration! As for the hobby in general, I virtually gave up when everybody started using "rice boxes". Luckily for me, the AM revival came along and I could once again have interesting discussions with like-minded souls using vintage equipment that I could actually work on.

[Nuvistor]

I still have my small collection of QSL cards, about 50 of them and will be keeping them. I still have my license, validated until 2021 but unsure if I will be active again on the bands. Hobbies change so I may tune up again, plenty other things to occupy me over the many previous years.
The cards are mainly from the 70's, a few early 80's.
Frank

['LIVEWIRE?']

I'm intrigued to know how come two of the QSLs from the then DDR have 'Y-36-XC', & 'Y-34-14-L' callsigns instead of the more usual 'DM3YI' and similar allocations.

[Nuvistor]

Appears GDR had the use of the Y prefix, I don't know but perhaps similar to the UK M prefix.
Comment at this url. https://www.qrz.com/db/DL2VWR

Frank