[Dx-qsl] Who Says QSLing is Going Out of Style?

[Peter Dougherty]

I concur with Fred on this one. Our W2 bureau, last month, got a massive
load also. I sort the letter O and my XYL is now doing a primary sort of her
own and is still going through the July and August bags. My August O sort
will be the biggest I've ever done.

I'd also attribute Global QSL to this resurgence to one degree or another as
we see a lot of their cards coming through our buro. Fast easy and simple to
use, I'd say it's contributing about 5% or so of the overall total.

-----------------------------------

Regards,

Peter,
W2IRT

-----Original Message-----
From: dx-qsl-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:dx-qsl-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Alfred Laun
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 11:22 PM
To: dx-qsl
Subject: [Dx-qsl] Who Says QSLing is Going Out of Style?

I can't explain what it is, but something is going on.

There have been predictions that the existence of eQSL.cc and Logbook
of the World would have the effect of diminishing the exchange of
traditional QSLs.  I became manager of the ARRL W3 QSL Bureau in
January 2006, and indeed, from 2006 to 2007 to 2008 the number of
cards this bureau handled diminished somewhat each year compared to
the previous year.

But not this year!

I empty the bureau's P. O. Box twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays.
Today when I went in the friendly postal clerk greeted me with a cart
full of boxes and bags.  Three big boxes from Spain, a box from
France, a box from Austria, an M bag from Japan and an M bag from
Poland.  This is the first time in my three-plus years of emptying the
bureau's box that I could not carry all the boxes at once;  I had to
wheel the cart out and unload it into my car' s trunk.  After getting
all the boxes home, unpacking and weighing the cards (144 cards to a
pound is the formula I use), the grand total of cards amounted to
14,349.

For this year, this is not an aberration.  At the midpoint of the
year, at the end of June, I totaled up what we had received up through
that time, and in the first six months of this year this bureau
received 102,699 cards.  That was a 35 percent increase over the
76,309 cards received during the same period in 2008.

It can't be sunspots!  Though it is true that a quiet Sun causes many
fewer ionospheric disturbances, so on the bands that are able to open
at all, conditions are more stable.

We do see an increasing number of RTTY and PSK mode cards, so one
explanation may be that as more people begin using these modes they
begin to chase awards given for QSOs on those modes.

But anyway, whatever the reason, I am here to report that traditional
QSLing is alive and well, and growing!

73, Fred Laun, K3ZO
Manager
NCDXA/ARRL Third Call Area Incoming QSL Bureau
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