[Dx-qsl] XE1IDJ?

[Patrick STODDARD]

Hi!

Len K1NU asked:

> Anyone get a card (direct or buro) from XE1IDJ?

> Sent a direct card about 3 months ago, no reponse yet.

I worked David on 8 December 2002 (12m CW as XE1IDJ, then a few
minutes later as 6J1IDJ on 12m SSB), sent my card direct with an 
SASE a day or two after our QSOs, and had his cards in 8 or 9 
weeks - not bad for the Mexican post.  I used this address 
(basically as shown on QRZ.com but formatted a little differently):

David VEGA Urbina
Huatapera 325, Col. Eduardo Ruiz
58140 - Morelia, Michoacan
Mexico

I sent an SASE with Mexican postage, and I put 2 stamps totaling 
10.20 pesos on my SASE.  BTW the air-mail rate for an envelope up 
to 20 grams from Mexico to the USA is 8.50 pesos (about 83 US cents 
right now, assuming an exchange rate of 10.20 pesos = USD 1).  For 
Europe and the rest of the Americas, the rate is 10.50 pesos (USD 
1.02), and for the rest of the world it is 11.50 pesos (USD 1.13).  
With the exchange rate fluctuating around the 10 pesos = USD 1 
level, it sometimes makes the rate for Europe and the rest of the 
Americas come in at just under USD 1, but without a noticeable 
devaluation of the peso the "rest of the world" rate will probably 
remain comfortably above USD 1.  

As for the XE bureau, good luck.  In the last 5-6 years, I have 
received maybe 1 or 2 cards in response to many more I sent that 
way.   When I send my cards direct - initially with an SAE and 
"green stamp", and in the last year or two with SASEs and the 
Mexican stamps - I have an excellent response rate from there.  
Others may have better luck with that bureau, if so - great!  A
few of my XE friends have difficulties in receiving cards through
the bureau as well as the increasing postal rates down there, so 
they are now using stateside managers (I'm the manager for a few 
of them).  

If you would like to try it with XE stamps, or possibly have your 
card and SASE posted in Mexico, please let me know - preferably 
in a direct e-mail.  I have a stash of Mexican stamps here at the 
house.  On my trips to the border area (3 or 4 hours away by car, 
depending on my destination) I sometimes post envelopes and cards
from there - great for mail heading to Havana and other places 
not on the US Treasury's Christmas-card list :-) - and reload my 
supply of XE stamps.  I sometimes send registered letters from 
there, at less than half the rate as the US post office - a 
bargain, and the mail gets through in about the same time as 
registered items I post from Phoenix AZ.  Also, I have a few friends 
who live at the border but have USA mailing addresses where I send 
them stuff to be dropped at a post office on the other side, if I
am not able to get to the border myself. 

73!


Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK - Glendale, AZ 
http://www.qsl.net/wd9ewk/

4A2Q from northern Mexico, 3-4 May 2003: http://www.qsl.net/4a2q/