QSC Cards & Bureaus

QSL WIKI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSL_card

ARRL QSL Card Bureau Information

Within the US, the ARRL DX QSL Bureau System is made up of numerous call-area bureaus. They act as central clearing houses for QSL cards arriving from foreign countries. Volunteers staff these “incoming” bureaus. The service is free. ARRL membership is not required.

Most countries have “outgoing” QSL bureaus that operate in much the same manner as the ARRL Outgoing QSL Service. The members send their cards to their outgoing bureau, where they are packaged and shipped to the appropriate countries.

A majority of the DX QSL cards are shipped directly to the individual incoming bureaus where volunteers sort the incoming QSLs by the first letter of the call sign suffix. One individual may be assigned the responsibility of handling one or more letters of the alphabet.

All incoming QSL Bureaus have e-mail addresses and Web pages.  The information for specific Bureaus is listed below.

You can claim your QSLs by sending a 5″ x 7-1/2″ or 6″ x 9″ self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) or money credit to the bureau serving your call sign area. Neatly print your call sign in the upper left corner of the envelope. Place your mailing address on the front of the envelope. A suggested way to send envelopes is to affix a first class stamp and clip extra postage to the envelope. Then, if you receive more than 1 ounce of cards, they can be sent in a single package.

All sixth area call signs:
ARRL Sixth (6th) District DX QSL Bureau
6th District Incoming QSL Bureau
P.O. Box 7488
Stockton, CA 95267-0488
Questions can be directed to:  6thdistrictqslmanager@gmail.com 

• http://www.arrl.org/qsl-service
• http://www.arrl.org/outgoing-qsl-service
• http://www.arrl.org/incoming-qsl-service

Have Them Made For You

• KB3IFH QSL Cards (extensive)
  https://www.kb3ifhqslcards.com/
• Radio QTH (Make them one at a time here! Pretty Cool)
  https://www.radioqth.net/qslcards
• QSL Concept
  https://qslconcept.com/usa/product/qslcards/
• Giga Parts QSL Cards
  https://www.gigaparts.com/customizable-standard-3-5-x5-5-qsl-card.html?srsltid=AfmBOopJGScCbawPLibtDmKVEc0HIYFGpY9UQkvxfa8NAqFivwg9YF0F
• UX5UO world of QSO’s
  https://www.ux5uoqsl.com/

eQSL Cards

When you have a QSO with someone, you can send your eQSL card to the other person – you do this either from the eQSL website, or this can be done automatically if you use computer logging software. Your eQSL card will appear in the other person’s inbox, and they can view, download or print the card. That person has the option to send their card back to you.If you’ve already been on-air, you might find that you already have some eQSL cards waiting for you – Enter your callsign on the form to the right to see how many waiting cards you have.

There are 3106 eQSL cards waiting to be retrieved

That’s what I saw when I looked up my callsign. KN6RBP

• https://eqsl.cc/qslcard/Index.cfm
• https://www.eqsl.cc/qslcard/ImportLotW.cfm

eQSL Versus LOTW Versus Paper QSL Cards

Created by Jerry Spring, VE6CNU on 2006-08-06
eQSL Versus LOTW Versus Paper QSL Cards

I’ve been back into ham radio for almost 2 years now, after a hiatus of about 25 years. When I looked back at my old QSL cards(which I managed to keep) I noticed that many had 6 cent stamps! Besides reminding me of how old I must be, it also reminded me of how expensive the old paper QSL method has become. Over this 2 year period I have tried to take advantage of both eQSL andLOTW in addition to the paper QSL cards. For just over 5,000 QSOs in this time period (many of these are from contesting) withover 150 entities, I have obtained the following results:

• Paper QSLs sent: 502
• Paper QSLs received: 318
• eQSLs sent: 5026
• eQSLs received: 469
• LOTWs sent: 5099
• LOTWs received: 919

Observations and Comments:

1) Of the 318 paper QSL cards I received in the mail, 302 of them were “thank yous”. In other words, if I didn’t request one I didn’t get one.

2) Of the 502 paper QSLs I sent out, about 450 were sent direct with an appropriate number of “green stamps” and a self-addressed envelope. I should point out that I’ve only been at this for 2 years now and many cards are probably still “in the mail”. (At least I hope.) I have received very few cards back “via the bureau”, but then I’ve been told this often takes years. Hence, the direct QSL method seems to be the most effective (63% success rate so far).

3) The second most-successful method was LOTW, although way down at 18%. In fact, this number was double the rate of eQSL (9%). I can only speculate as to why this is. The first thought is that LOTW QSLs actually count towards ARRL sanctioned awards, such as DXCC and WAS. Although it costs money to claim these QSOs for awards credit, it is significantly cheaper than mailing out real cards. LOTW also avoids having to have someone verify your paper QSL cards. In my particular case, I ended up with 80 real cards and 20 LOTW cards for my DXCC. For those using eQSL, once the requirements are met for their awards, it is simply a matter of printing the certificate from your computer. There is also an annual donation required for eQSL, which seems quite justified for what you get. In eQSL you actually can design your own card and this is part of the fun of their system. Unfortunately, the majority of eQSL users seem to use one of the standard QSL cards. LOTW is just an impersonal database.

Bottom Line:

If you seriously need a QSL, do it the old-fashioned way – with paper – at least for now. It appears that the majority of hams are still not into QSLing via the internet. Perhaps it is the difficulty in getting the certified status that puts people off. For others, it may seem impersonal or simply unnecessary. After all, most hams usually have a good supply of their own QSL cards on hand. Yet with postage rates seeming to climb almost exponentially with time, the electronic methods of QSLing will eventually become the norm. With the population of hams seeming to have peaked a few years ago, maybe there is only room for one electronic QSLservice to survive. I’d like to hear others’ comments on this topic and see if my results are that much different.

Jerry
VE6CNU

ARRL Electronic QSL Policy (June 2010 Revision)

Discussions regarding the QSL services offered byseveral electronic QSLing services suggests that there is some confusion about ARRL QSL policy. Simply put, there has been no change in League policy regarding e-QSLs. ARRL
does not accept QSLs (for any award, including DXCC, WAS, VUCC and WAC) that have been transmitted to the recipient via electronic means for its awards. Anyone acting as an authorized QSL manager, however, may receive
logs via e-mail (or any other direct means) and send QSL cards, via post mail, to recipients. This is the traditional QSL manager process. As has always been the case, certain norms are expected when handling cards in this manner.
First, we expect that a QSL manager will seek permission from operators for whom QSLs are handled. We do not accept cards from unauthorized QSL managers for award credit.

Second, since most operators requesting QSLs expect that the returned cards will correctly reflect the actual QSO data, we expect that a QSL manager will do the checking required to assure that only real contacts are verified. We all know that raw logs contain many errors. Often, these errors are only detected when incoming cards are compared to
the log. The distribution of QSLs, without any checking of the information contained on the incoming cards is poor QSLing practice, and may lead to blanket rejection of all QSL cards from the station/manager in question

Also, we expect to be able to identify cards as authentic. Many cards are printed on home printers, and, in many cases, the data is printed on card stock at the same time. Although this is technically acceptable, the process often makes verification difficult. In certain cases we may reject these cards. Cards should be personalized or otherwise made unique through the use of a stamp or other personal mark (signature or initials) across a label boundary

Finally, the concept of obtaining a QSL card at no charge is a long-held tradition in ham radio and DXCC, and we endeavor to continue this tradition. QSL managers handling cards for DXCC submission must make cards available if adequate postage is supplied. Postage can be supplied by sending International Reply Coupons (IRCs), direct funds, or SASEs. As noted in DXCC rule 12(d) – Complaints relating to monetary issues involved in QSLing will generally not
be considered.

For its awards, the ARRL does not accept electronically transmitted QSLs that are printed by the recipient. There is no restriction placed on how log information is conveyed to an authorized QSL manager, however. Cards provided by QSL managers who make a reasonable effort to comply with the guidelines presented here will be gladly accepted for DXCC credit.

The only, current, exception to this policy is ARRL’s LogBook of The World System. ARRL has gone to great lengths to provide a system of electronic verification of individuals, even before they are able to upload logs and/or claim credit towards awards, through the use of Trusted QSL software and VeriSign Inc electronic certificate authentication.
For more information on LoTW, visit: http://www.arrl.org/logbook-of-the-world

https://www.arrl.org/files/file/DXCC/eQSL%20Policy2010.pdf