[Dx-qsl] Envelope problem

[Peter W2IRT]

At 02:54 AM 06/03/2006, Ragnar Otterstad wrote:

>It is amazing, that a big country like USA has so tiny envelopes !  hi
>I am spending a lot of time on taping envelopes not big enough to hold my
>direct QSL-cards to USA.
>
>Gents, please use standard size air-mail enevlopes. It makes life easier and
>gets your much wanted qsls back in good shape.

Not as easy as all that over here. Paper, stationery and envelope 
sizes here in NA are not standard metric sizes (I'd much prefer A3 
over 8.5 x 11 but I digress). In the vast majority of shops selling 
envelopes and paper, etc, you can readily find two sizes of envelopes 
that are relevant to QSLing. One is what's called the number 10 size 
(perfectly fits an 8.5" wide piece of paper), and the "return" size 
of 6 3/4. These are dirt cheap, readily available and coincidentally 
fit just about any card printed by the big European and American QSL 
printers today, (which are nominally 140mm x 90mm in size).

In addition to that, there is no such thing as "standard air mail 
envelopes" in the United States anymore since all mail internally and 
about 99% of letters externally are automatically sent by air 
(surface cost the same if you want it), and the postage price is the 
same up to a little over 28 grammes (1 ounce). As a result, go into a 
shop like Staples over here (think of a supermarket-sized building 
selling nothing but office supplies) and finding air mail envelopes 
essentially isn't possible -- even in popular sizes -- since the US 
Post office doesn't require the blue-and-red AIR MAIL/PAR AVION 
lightweight envelopes for international mailings.

Now, if you really look hard and go to the little neighbourhood shops 
in cities you can sometimes find airmail stationery, but it's getting 
increasingly rare -- and for most hams, doesn't make sense to do so. 
Bill Plum sells nesting EU-sized Air Mail envelopes. I've used them 
with somewhat poor results if you want to know the truth.

For me personally, I have custom-printed Monarch size envelopes 
(trade size of 7 3/4, I think), which will indeed handle the older 
sized EU cards without the need for tape or folding of envelope 
flaps, but then again, I'm a somewhat persnickety QSLer. That 
envelope plus one or two QSLs will typically come out at 10 grammes 
or less, and they're made of somewhat thick paper, too, so they're 
resistant to tearing by postal machinery, I've found.



Cheers,

Peter,
W2IRT