[Dx-qsl] OM2SA

[Peter Dougherty]

At 23:21 07-02-04, Ron Notarius WN3VAW wrote:

>I think these calls for boycotts in particular and bashing in general are at
>best premature, if not totally uncalled for.

Ron, with respect, I have to disagree, at least to some degree.

>There is insufficient data to show that Juraj is the problem; for all we
>know, someone further up or down the postal food chain is intercepting some
>of the mail

This is a fair statement in and of itself, however the statement by N7RT:

>>I emailed him and he replied that he mailed them. He even gave dates of 
>>when he mailed them. Then I get 3 QSLs in one envelope (envelope was not 
>>one of mine) and 2 weeks after that I got 2 more in one of my envelopes.

To me this doesn't indicate malfeasance in the post office.

>>I emailed him back to thank him but his email address bounced.
>>Only 2 more QSL's to go so keeping fingers crossed......

I, too, have tried e-mailing him on several occasions only to have them all 
bounce. As far as I'm concerned, if you've agreed to be the manager for a 
*major* DX operation like T31MY and others, you should at least be 
responsive to enquiries by e-mail and get through your backlog in a timely 
and efficient manner. If you choose not to, then you deserve to be boycotted.

I'm not saying every glitch should be looked on with scorn, but a pattern 
of problems needs to be looked at. If an operation chooses to spend five or 
even six figures worth of money, take maybe 6 months out of their lives - 
or longer - to prepare for, run and recover from a major operation, they 
are not doing themselves any favours by agreeing to the services of a 
manager who's not up to the job or who's only in it for the green stamps, etc.

Not just that, goodwill that was sponsored by an major international 
operation can be easily squandered by a crappy QSLer. Not to mention, the 
next operation that uses that manager might very well see their donations 
dry up or be smaller than they would otherwise. Face it, when I see OM2SA 
as a manager in future, I will remember the cards I never got back, or that 
came back almost a year after the fact when it comes time to include a 
"little something extra."

I suspect with postage costs through much of Europe being just *slightly* 
more than one US Dollar (as in about $1.15 or $1.20), I'm guessing there's 
going to be a rather large influx of EU managers pretty shortly as well. 85 
cents extra "left over" times 10,000 cards for a major DXPedition is NOT 
chump change!



73 de Peter (W2IRT)
w2irt@nac.net

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