[OKDXA] W8S - Swains Island QRT

[Jeff Martin]

Good Morning OKDXA...
   W8S - Swains Island is now QRT. They ended up with just short of 90K 
QSOs, not a bod effort... I hope everyone worked them on all the 
bands/modes that you needed. I worked them on FT8 on every band from 160 
through 10 meters. 160 and 60 were new band countries for me. Also had a 
bunch of CW QSOs and one lone SSB contact on 10 meters. They put on a 
good show...

   Some items of note regarding their QSL practices:

* After 6 months all QSOs will be uploaded to LoTW.

* Quick LoTW upload via OQRS request costs 5 Euros (About $5.28 USD + 
fees).

* A Direct Card + LoTW via OQRS request costs 8 Euros (About $8.50 USD + 
fees).

* QSL cards to anyone who mails adequate funds for return postage and 
includes SAE will be answered.

So, there you have it... The OKDXA made a financial contribution to the 
Swains Island DXpedition several years ago. The dxpedition was postponed 
several times. The recent trend with many of these mega-dxpeditions has 
been to treat QSLing as a method of fund-raising. In reviewing whether 
an upcoming DXpedition is worthy of support, we have decided to not 
emphasize some of our earlier rules regarding QSL practices, our only 
requirement now being a free lotw upload of the entire log within one 
year. That's not to say we support this new trend of forced funding by 
QSL practices. We still want to support DXpeditions, the changing times 
indicate we change our policy...

Hope you had a good time chasing W8S - Swains...

DX Is!

73,
Jeff - K5WE