QSL Book & QSL Cards
You are probably wondering why in the world anyone would go to all the trouble to write a book about sending and receiving QSL cards for amateur radio contacts and going as far as putting up this web site. The work and expense may seem un-necessary to most hams and yet there are some who I have bounced this idea off of who told me they know of many hams with no clue about QSLing. So here it is, The QSL Book. A resource for hams and maybe some SWL as well but the main focus is going to be on ham radio operators.
As mentioned in the book, I overheard some folks talking about QSL cards one day and it struck me that at least one of them needed some help doing something I had been doing since late 1977. Sending and receiving QSL cards isn’t really all that difficult to do and yet some folks dislike doing it because of the cards being sent to their attention. Many of the profiles on QRZ.com and ham radio web sites list general guidelines and sometimes quite specific instructions on how the recipient wants to see QSLs sent to them. Sometimes folks send QSL cards incorrectly out of inexperience or they may not know of the recipient’s requirements. And I dare say some folks simply ignore everything and just send a card in without paying any attention to the way the QSL should be handled. I can say this because of the number of QSL cards I have received for two club calls that I administer.
What the book is about is how to send out QSL cards in a way that will please the recipient enough to place your QSL request on the top of their “QSLs-to-do-file”. What makes me smart enough to write this book? Nothing more than many QSLs which I have received which were processed wrong, those methods which I have read on QSL manager’s profiles on QRZ or their own web sites. I am not an authority on QSL cards but there are things I have learned that a newcomer to the hobby or just to QSLing may benefit from.
What this book does not address:
Although I have tried to incorporate all facets of the QSL card this book is not all inclusive. Positive responses were received from several of the online QSL resources to my request for information from them. If you see a resource missing from The QSL Book then it is most likely because I did not receive any response from them and not because I intentionally omitted them.
SWL. Shortwave listeners are many times also amateur radio operators and yet the SWL process is somewhat different than the process used with amateur radio. There is a very short article on SWL but it should not be viewed as a wide-ranging resource for shortwave listeners.
That’s about all there is to say about The QSL Book other than I hope you will pick up your copy today at our sales page: purchase The QSL Book here.
“The more questions you ask, the more you learn.”
