I'm running a Signalink USB into an Icom 756 Pro 2. On digital modes, in order to avoid high levels of ALC, I have to turn the audio levels down so that the power meter shows only 10% (maybe 10 watts) output. My father-in-law also has a Signalink USB, an Icom 756 Pro 2, and the same antenna I have, yet he can crank up the audio levels to show 100% power and still has 0 ALC.

What would cause such a significant difference between identical systems? Is there something wrong with my rig? Is there any way (short of getting an amplifier) to increase power while minimizing ALC ?

Sign up for LoTW, upload your logs, and let it do all the work for you. It will automatically match confirmations and show you which states you have confirmed. For those that are not confirmed on LoTW, you could send QSL cards and have them checked for ARRL credit, but I don't think it's really worth the effort for WAS - just keep working states until you get them all confirmed on LoTW. With some effort, you should be able to do it in a few weeks or months.

All 50 states will be on the air many times over tomorrow during the North American QSO Party. With even a very basic station you should be able to work the vast majority in a few hours. My goal for tomorrow is a clean sweep - all 50 states in 10 hours.

Thank you for the very useful information.

I'm now using...
Outer - 6.5" x 4.75"
Inner - 5.75" x 4.375

So my inner envelope is just slightly smaller.


Yikes! You've got to be looking at $5 or $6 per QSL – materials + postage there + return postage (plus postage to get the international stamp to you from Plum) + $2.

My thought was that if a DXer didn't want to or couldn't participate digitally in LOTW, that their paper cards would automatically be entered as LOTW confirmations when routed through the updated bureau service. In other words, the card checking would happen automatically for both incoming and outgoing cards because they'd all be routed through the ARRL.

I realize my low success rate for my early cards (again, a pretty small sample) is not normal, and can probably be mostly attributed to my poor practices. I'm learning a lot and appreciate your recommendations.

I use an embedded envelope system. I'll review my envelope sizes and check out Plum DX Supplies (no web site???). What size envelopes do you use/recommend?

Ordering and sending the DX's local return postage as Randy suggested (rather than sending green stamps) seems like a lot of work and seems to increase the possibility of issues with postage rate changes.

It's interesting that KY6R finds the bureau "a total waste of time". To me it seems a great way to request cards that I want, but that I don't want bad enough to spend time and $3 on. I just wish it were easier to use and more efficient. Despite having funds on account and requesting monthly batches, I haven't received incoming bureau cards in several months. Perhaps the 7th area bureau is just way behind?

I had the exact same thought. We can get a digital photo of the Martian landscape within 2 minutes of a rover completing it's 154 million mile mission, yet it takes me 8 months to get a paper QSL card from Costa Rica.

Ahhh... the classic "if you don't do/understand/use X, then how did you ever get licensed" troll response. I've only seen that one maybe 100 times in recent weeks on these forums.


This is precisely my point. It is this attitude and resistance to change that is causing most new hams to never even consider paper QSLs. It's the reason our paper QSLing system is pretty much the same as it was in the 50s.

I love paper QSLs. I just think the current process of getting/sending them sucks. Most new hams simply won't bother learning all of the nuances and complexities.

I'm a new and comparatively young ham (you've been licensed nearly as long as I've been alive). I've embraced and love technology. I write at most 1 check a month (nearly all transactions, shopping, etc. are done online) and if it weren't for QSLing, I'd be using the same book of forever stamps I bought 5 years ago.

I can absolutely assure you that if exchanging QSL cards continues to be such a manual, convoluted, and unreliable process that take months and years for a possible confirmation, that it will, as the original poster suggested, go the way of the vacuum-tube receiver. And that would be a shame, with the blame entirely on those who resist change and instead suggest that if it's so hard, you should stop doing it or shouldn't have been licensed in the first place.

I hope so. I admit that I've only been at this a year and have learned a lot about QSLing (better packaging, how to check some confirmation rates, etc.) since the first few small batches went out last year - and most cards are not to major DX stations, just to interesting places and folks that had cool looking cards visible online or with which I had a memorable QSO.

My experience (again, not a large or long-lived sample) has been that those who do LoTW are more likely to respond to paper QSLs, even though I've already received a LoTW confirmation. This is followed by those who do bureau. But those who only do direct and require $2 or $3 for postage are by far the least likely to respond (at least within 6 months of getting my card).

I agree that T32C is probably a good barometer of basic DX interest because it was easily workable from anywhere in the US for a month. They worked 49,000 unique stations. Of their total QSOs, 1/2 were from the US. Based on band usage and license allocations, you could safely assume a maximum of maybe 60% of uniques were from the US. That means at most 29,000 US hams had a QSO with T32C.

That's about 4% of the 706,000 licensed amateur radio operators in the US. Even if you consider all General and above licensees, that's still less than 9% of that audience that made the most basic of DX contacts. Of course the number of "active" hams that even casually chase DX will likely be higher than this, but I wouldn't suspect by much.

I fairly new to all this, but think the whole QSL card process is terribly convoluted, complex, and antiquated.

Beyond the many hours I spend handling QSL cards, my direct paper QSL rate thus far has only been 20% for overseas cards sent over 6 months ago - that's an awful lot of time and greenstamps for nothing.

If the ARRL were to centralize a paper QSL service, I think it would be wildly popular, and profitable.

A few thoughts:

- Combine outgoing bureaus and our terribly antiquated incoming bureaus (mine requires a paper form and check to be mailed in order to get cards that are several months behing in processing and still take 6+ months to get here from an adjacent continent... in 2012!). Also create a new, centralized direct paper QSL system.

- Paper QSLs exchanged via the bureau or this service should automatically be confirmed as a QSL in LoTW for the party to whom the card is sent. Having a card checker confirm a card that has already been routed through ARRL HQ seems silly to me. With a standard format or bar/QR code, cards could be scanned and QSLs semi-automated.

- Allow hams to customize their own cards based on ARRL specifications. You'd pay a card printing fee, a few cents for an envelope, and a small handling fee. Maybe $1 or so total for each card. And you'd also pay the bureau fee or appropriate postage if sent direct. You could also pay a few cents for a return addressed envelope (if required) and any required return postage/handling amount (greenstamps). A few clicks and the card is on its way.

- Overseas folks could set up an account with the ARRL and only pay printing, handling, and domestic postage for their QSL (or even require the person requesting the QSL to pay it). Joint collaboration between ARRL and other overseas services could remove much of the international postage expenses - just print the card near where it's being sent. Imagine getting a rare DX's high quality card in 3 days printed and shipped from ARRL HQ, and that it would only cost you or the DX $1 or so.


Anyway, I know it's all pie in the sky, but I think a lot of folks would happily pay for a convenient and reliable service like this. Or maybe this simply takes the challenge, spirit, and frustration out of QSLing.

Of course this omits the one minute of you calling CQ and the one minute it takes for him to answer your call. That would bring the entire time required to 7 minutes.

This is the standard JT65 exchange, each step taking one minute:

1 - CQ N7SMI DN41
2 - N7SMI VE3FMC EN92
3 - VE3FMC N7SMI -06
4 - N7SMI VE3FMC R-11
5 - VE3FMC N7SMI RRR
6 - N7SMI VE3FMC 73 (or freeform response)
7 - VE3FMC N7SMI 73 (or freeform response)

With this exchange, while someone could jump in and call you in the 8th minute, it is usually silent before you call CQ again on the 9th minute. This makes the QSO 7 minutes at best.

You could do an abbreviated version...

1 - CQ N7SMI DN41
2 - N7SMI VE3FMC EN92
3 - VE3FMC N7SMI -06
4 - N7SMI VE3FMC R-11
5 - VE3FMC N7SMI 73 (or freeform response)
6 - N7SMI VE3FMC 73 (or freeform response)

You could then call CQ again on the 7th minute, making the QSO 6 minutes.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how it's possible to have a 4 or 5 minute QSO unless you're not exchanging signal reports (I think this is typical for EME) or you're not confirming receipt of the signal report. If you call CQ again without responding to the signal report, I'd think many people would assume that you did not receive the report and they won't log the QSO.

18102.0 USB is the JT65 frequency. That's almost certainly what you heard. To me it sounds like someone playing a depressed electric keyboard with one finger.

It's an odd, yet strangely appealing mode. Because it is works so well with almost no power, you can make contacts at very long distances even in very poor conditions. The primary drawback is that it takes 7 minutes to make a very basic QSO exchange of grid square and signal report.

I heard several other RTTY QSOs going on amidst the CY9M pileup (though unfortunately I couldn't copy CY9M). It didn't seem to bother them at all. But I agree that it was a pretty wide pile-up. It's really the DXs responsibility to outline the area he'll be monitoring - simply indicating "UP" opens up the possibility for such wide pileups.

For the cost of bandwidth for all the high quality photos CY9M are posting to Twitter, they could have uploaded several thousand log files. I do think that the online logs decrease the MANY duplicate 'insurance' contacts.