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Do you still QSL?

CADXER

CADXER

I am curious to find out how many DXers still send out reception reports in order to receive QSLs.

I used to send our reports on regular basis for my SW and AM logs in the past and have a large collection of QSL cards and letters. That was during the time when I was heavily involved in DXing hobby (1979 -2000). After 2000 I rarely sent out any reception reports. It would have to be a rare catch such as hearing new country, state or province in order for me to send out a report.

Until these last two months it was almost 10 years since I received a QSL card in the mail. However in the past 2 months I was able to receive several QSLs for my reports. Two of them resulted in one new state (KTNN Window Rock, AZ) and a new province (CKST Vancouver, BC). The other QSL was for the WNJC DX test. There might be one more coming my way as I am still waiting for the KSEN DX test verification.

So my question is: Do you still QSL?
 
CADXER said:
I am curious to find out how many DXers still send out reception reports in order to receive QSLs.

I used to send our reports on regular basis for my SW and AM logs in the past and have a large collection of QSL cards and letters. That was during the time when I was heavily involved in DXing hobby (1979 -2000). After 2000 I rarely sent out any reception reports. It would have to be a rare catch such as hearing new country, state or province in order for me to send out a report.

Until these last two months it was almost 10 years since I received a QSL card in the mail. However in the past 2 months I was able to receive several QSLs for my reports. Two of them resulted in one new state (KTNN Window Rock, AZ) and a new province (CKST Vancouver, BC). The other QSL was for the WNJC DX test. There might be one more coming my way as I am still waiting for the KSEN DX test verification.

So my question is: Do you still QSL?
Click to expand...


Eh, sometimes... it depends.. usually it depends on if i think the reception is unique or good enough.

Then there are DXers who think stations owe them QSLs and hound stations to get them.. and they're proud of that fact! As one of the people who helps arrange DX Tests with the IRCA and NRC, i hear the comments first and second hand. And i was a member of a facebook group where one owner got into a discussion with some hobbyists that basically boiled down to.. if the station owner didnt send out QSL cards to anyone who sent a reception report, he didnt like the business enough because cards were owed to these dxers and he should find something else to do.

Too many dxers think the radio business revolves around them
 
Never did. In the early days, when SW was still a thing, and stations QSLed with cool looking cards, I suppose it would have been fun, but I never bothered. Never bothered with MW, either. I mean, I know what I heard, and know what I logged, and that's always been enough for me. But power to those who are into that.
 
Not since high school. But my wife's brother is a ham and has worked over 100 countries. Every square inch of his ham shack is covered with QSL cards. I don't think any of them are from commercial or government run stations,
 
My first QSL was in the early 60s. KFI in the midwest and they sent what they called a "verification stamp".
I didn't QSL too many SW stations and I haven't QSL'ed any station in a very long time.
 
My first was WBZ. Also early 60s. Black and white postcard with photo of their TX site.
 
Many stations will e-mail you a QSL Card, which I guess could be printed out on photo paper or pre-cut postcard material.
Not quite as nice as a hand-written card with a legal stamp and postmark, of course.
Not sure what the new KSL CE does...John Dehnel used to mail cards to those who mailed reports, and did e-mail for e-mail.
I enjoy hearing reports of "Verification Stamps"....that was back when broadcasting was fun, and stations had listener clubs, gave away prizes, and shortwave mailed out pennants.
Maybe we need a thread on "swag" that we used to get?
 
My first was WBKN, Newton, MS, on a frequency check. 500 watts on 1410. I did not know about requesting verifications back then, but the engineer at WBKN doing the test asked for reports and gave a mail address and I wrote. I got a letter back with reference to a radio club and joined. But that little daytimer, heard in Cleveland, got me started and I eventually got nearly 2,500 verifications from that location.
 
radioman148 said:
My first QSL was in the early 60s. KFI in the midwest and they sent what they called a "verification stamp".
I didn't QSL too many SW stations and I haven't QSL'ed any station in a very long time.
Click to expand...
Look up "EKKO" stamps. And you can find quite a few for sale on eBay!
 
Broadcast stations: Not since the 1970s.

Hams: Only if someone sends me one, or says they will. Then I'll send him/her one. That comes out to about 10 cards per year tops. I just print my own since I need so few of them. 99.99% of my verifications are via eQSL.
 
I sent a report via the stations website contact form to a little station in Eatonton GA. about 5 years ago. The CE/Owner was real appreciative since he had gotten some grief from clients doubting if he was "getting out." He sent an E-QSL card which was a photo of his 10KW Continental transmitter. (I didn't request it.)
I think most of the QSL hobby was driven by magazines such as Popular Electronics and Monitoring Times, which are now gone.
 
I stopped sending out QSL requests in my college days. I still have a small stack of cards saved from childhood, the earliest of which is from Radio Canada (no "International" in the name yet) for my reception on 9630 kHz on Jan. 22, 1967. I was 11 years old.
 
kf4rca said:
I think most of the QSL hobby was driven by magazines such as Popular Electronics and Monitoring Times, which are now gone.
Click to expand...

Pop'Tronics was what fed my enthusiasm for the hobby in the '60s. Monitoring Times came along pretty late in the game, 1980, followed two years later by Popular Communications, which had much better distribution (thanks to its ties to CQ) and greater circulation.

In retrospect, there was a lot more for the listener in both MT and PC than in PE. I don't recall PE printing anything at all about medium wave DXing, nor did its shortwave loggings ever include pirates ("Clandestine" anti-government operations overseas, yes. Remember Radio Euzkadi? But no Partial India Radio or Voice of To-morrow.) There was always a lot of non-listening and even non-radio stuff to sort through to get at the SW nuggets, too -- DIY articles on oscilloscopes, doorbells and such. The SWL/MWL of the hobby's declining years, ironically, had it much better than those in the days when it was more popular.
 
CTListener said:
Pop'Tronics was what fed my enthusiasm for the hobby in the '60s. Monitoring Times came along pretty late in the game, 1980, followed two years later by Popular Communications, which had much better distribution (thanks to its ties to CQ) and greater circulation.

Did you have one of those Pop Tronics "listener call letters" or whatever they called them? I did....W PE9...FZA. I liked PE. But on balance, youi're right that there wasn't much there for the MW DXer.
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They had just changed from WPE to WDX when I applied. I got WDX1IDA. I was also W1-1087/RB with the Radio Budapest Shortwave Club, got the Sweden Calling DXers bulletin mailed to me weekly, and won three contests. The big prize was for a Radio Canada letter-writing contest. The challenge was to describe your favorite program to Earle Fisher, host of Listeners' Corner. I figured a good way to improve my chances was to write an over-the-top letter celebrating Earle Fisher and Listeners' Corner. It worked! I got a half dozen LPs of Canadian folk music! I also won a board game from Austrian Radio and a gypsy-style kerchief from Radio Bucharest for correct answers to quiz questions. From age 11 to age 15, I kept the mailman very busy!
 
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Ah, yes, the Popular Electronics WPE callsign system. I was WPE9JZT from May 1970 (received a few days after my Novice license arrived) until PE dropped it a few months later. Hank Bennett, the PE shortwave editor who (IIRC) was let go when the magazine changed focus, tried to carry it on by himself, changing the prefix to WDX. Since he was also the shortwave section editor for the Newark News Radio Club, many thought it was a part of the club, although it wasn't.
 
KeithE4 said:
Ah, yes, the Popular Electronics WPE callsign system. I was WPE9JZT from May 1970 (received a few days after my Novice license arrived) until PE dropped it a few months later. Hank Bennett, the PE shortwave editor who (IIRC) was let go when the magazine changed focus, tried to carry it on by himself, changing the prefix to WDX. Since he was also the shortwave section editor for the Newark News Radio Club, many thought it was a part of the club, although it wasn't.
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So I must have applied shortly after you, with the program still part of PE, but by the time Bennett processed the application, PE was no longer in the picture. Now that you mention it, I seem to recall getting some sort of explanation of why I was getting a WDX "call" along with the certificate. I ought to check out David Eduardo's collection of PEs sometime, now that I know the time frame of all this activity.
 
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