QSL CARDS: A STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE

Steve Katz WB2WIK/6

Most old timers have QSL card collections. Many newbies do, too, although eQSL and LOTW, plus rising postage costs and other modern issues are slowly eroding the mailed QSL card following.

Newer hams often ask, “Do I need QSL cards?” and similar questions relating to this issue. Well, the fact is, of course you don't “need” QSL cards. Faced with a choice between improving my antenna system or buying QSL cards, I'd do the antenna work. Back when I was a Novice, I'm not so sure that would have been my choice. I was wildly enthusiastic about QSLing, and couldn't wait to start building a collection to proudly display on the “shack” wall. That was the norm. It was what I saw in the hamshacks of the old timers I visited, and it's what I wanted.

History

“Little Print Shop” in Texas knew my Novice callsign before I did. I never figured out how. Back in those days pre-PCs and pre-internet and pre-VECs and pre-everything, we had to wait for our FCC licenses to come via regular mail, and this often took 6-8-10 weeks after passing a test. For our first license, we had no idea what our callsigns would be until we received the license by mail. Somehow, though, Little Print Shop had this info first. I received a solicitation to buy QSL cards from them a few days before my actual license arrived, and it was addressed to WN2WIK, my first callsign as a Novice.

So, I plunked down $4, I think it was, to buy some QSL cards before I actually had the license, figuring Little Print Shop knew everything. The license came, and then the cards about two weeks later. I was off and running in the QSL department. To mail a QSL as a post card cost four cents at the time. So, for a total investment of $8, I could send out 100 QSL cards and hope other hams would send me theirs.

They did.

Clock forward almost 42 years, and I'm still QSLing. Not as much today as back then. Initially, I sent a card to every single station I worked, local or DX. I collected probably 500 QSL cards from people I could have walked to visit, they were really that local. The shack wall started filling up. When I started working 15m CW and working DX, I went crazy waiting for DX cards to arrive - but they did eventually arrive. I started collecting for WAS; for DXCC, then 5BDXCC (five band DXCC, that is working DXCC on five different bands); then WAZ and 5BWAZ…. After about five years, I had roughly 5000 QSL cards: About 500 “on the wall,” and about 4500 in the filing cabinet, sorted alphanumerically so I could find one quickly.

In almost 42 years, I've never really been “inactive” for more than maybe a few weeks at a time. That's a lot of QSLs. I now have more than 30,000 cards and the collection continues to grow, albeit at a much slower pace than originally. I don't send cards to everyone I work. In fact, I don't send cards to anybody unless I receive one from them, first. Then, I send one in reply. That's still about 10 cards a week or about 500 a year.

(You don't have to invest much time to making contacts. I “operate” maybe 1-1/2 hours per day, after work. Some of that time is spent puttering, listening, tuning around. I still make about 100 contacts a week, not counting contests.)

The value of QSL cards

Electronic QSLing may eventually replace paper mailed cards altogether. But I can tell you, there's something very special about the mailed cards. They provide a trip down memory lane that's unmatched by electronic stuff. On a rainy day, or a day when propagation stinks, or sometimes just for nostalgia's sake, I can open a box and shuffle through a couple of hundred cards. I'd say at least 10% of them bring back very distinct memories, especially if I actually read the cards. The ones from major DX operations and contests are mostly computer labeled and while they're nice and colorful, they're not nearly as nice as the ones that are hand written, with personal comments.

I have cards with peoples' pictures on them. And ones with hand sketches. Cards made from regular drug store post cards, and ones that started life as Post Office (blank) post cards, rubber stamped by a ham to turn them into QSL cards. The memories flow.

I have QSLs with hand-written comments relating to our QSO topics: “Great to meet a fellow organist and B3 enthusiast! Let's jam together sometime.” That one related to a discussion about electronic organs, including the now-classic Hammond B3, which I owned for several years. “Thanks for sticking with me as I adjusted my bug and sorry for the lousy fist!” That one related to my patience for not disappearing on a new operator who spent most of our QSO making key adjustments.

I have QSLs from hams living in places I've visited, and also ones I haven't. Ones I haven't include a lot of Russia, and Korea, and New Zealand; and the Falklands, and South Africa, and lots of places. The photos on some of these cards are magnificent, and show what the operator's area actually looks like. Everyone has “JA” (Japanese) cards showing Mt. Fuji, but I have a lot of JA cards showing people's backyards, antennas, automobiles and their families. JA's are camera-happy people.

Looking through QSL cards stirs up a lot of great memories and can be pretty emotional: Like when I find a card from someone I knew well, who is now a Silent Key.

I love the handwritten cards, and the ones with foreign postage on them (obviously they didn't come via the Bureau!), or ones with old U.S. postage, from when I was a kid and a postcard cost only four cents to mail.

Looking at the dates on the cards, I can spot exactly when the Sunspot Cycle peak was for each cycle from 20 through 23. (I missed Cycle 19 by about six years.) It's obvious, because near each cycle peak is a huge quantity of “DX” cards from the other side of the world, and then near each cycle minimum there are far fewer DX cards, and more domestic ones. In 2001, I received QSL cards from all 50 states and forty countries from six meter (50 MHz) contacts alone. That was a “peak.”

DX cards through the Bureau arrive in the best condition, usually, because they're never exposed to mail handling equipment. They go from a box or envelope into another box or envelope, and are routed “by hand” via the incoming Bureau QSL sorters. I receive cards today from contacts made five years ago or more, via the Bureau, and they're in great shape. But, they're lacking one thing: The postage from the country of origin. That's special and can be very colorful and interesting. Especially the postage from some of the islands, and from Africa.

I display here just a very few special cards, received pretty recently. I know they're pretty recent because they're from the last 1500 or so cards received, the ones still in the shack and not yet sorted and filed in storage. I'll get to that one day.

(Note: One card, from DA2QN in Berlin, is from a QSO in 1980! But I just received this card in 2006…not sure if that's a record breaker, or not. The other cards shown were selected because I thought they were pretty, or had interesting comments, or are from personal friends, or represent memorable QSOs for me.)

If you've read this and I haven't convinced you to start a QSL card collection: Well, I failed.

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