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

[Tom GM4FDM]

Hi Fread

We have jusy been discussing this on a slightly different aspect.

We all thought that LOTW etc would diminish the need for paper cards. 
When I came back from V8FDM I answered ALL the direct cards lying and 
then after 3 months put the logs onto LOTW.

Later the same year I went to GJ4FDM and another few thousand QSOs. 
The day I returned home I put my logs stratight onto LOTW before I had 
even designed a QSL card.

PUTTING THE LOGS ONTO LOTW MADE NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER TO THE NUMBERS 
OF DIRECT REQUESTS RECEIVED SUBSEQUENTLY AND I PRINTED THE SAME NUMBER 
OF QSL CARDS AS NORMAL AND STILL RECEIVE DIRECT REQUESTS FOR BOTH CALLS.

I have discussed this phenomena with Roger G3SXW who concurs.

As a DXer I thought when LOTW was born - "heh! this is the way - no more 
QSLing"   DXCC gets updated electronically, no more sending cards to 
ARRL.  But bo - for some inexplicable reason people still want paper 
cards.   Its a mystery to me.

Maybe it has something to do with the beautiful cards that are nowadays 
created by several of the worlds best card printers and people like to 
collect nice things?   When I joined my first radio club I can still 
emember one of the old guys who with a twinkle in his eye, took pleasure 
in taking you aside and showing you that magical card from Heard Island 
or Bhutan or somewhere exotic, perhaps there is still an aspect of that.

For me personally, it is just so much waste paper.


Tom
GM4FDM / GA4FDM

Save the rainforest





Alfred Laun wrote:
> 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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