A series of "Tips and Tricks" for obtaining a QSL when normal means fail.
Why would anyone even go to the trouble of getting a QSL card from any DX station they work? One of the main reasons is that a confirmation of a QSO is essential to many awards. Logbook of the World (LoTW) has made a major impact on confirmation of contacts but not every station uploads their logs to LoTW. That leaves a "written" confirmation (QSL card) as the method needed to apply that contact toward many awards. And, collecting QSL's from rare DX stations is FUN! Looking back through a stack of attractive and informative QSL's allows you to remember those contacts and educates you, your family and friends about the interesting places around the world which you have contacted.
You can view many different QSL's from all 340 Current DXCC entities from 1920 to the present on the K8CX QSL Museum. In addition to QSL's, the K8CX Museum contains Sound Clips, Photos from the Dayton Hamvention, Tributes to Ham Operators, and several other interesting items. Check out the Table of Contents for all that info.
An important first step in filling out your own QSL is to make certain the DATE is understandable to anyone in any country around the world. If you put the date down as "10/12/2023" does that mean October 12 or December 10? American usage calls for a month/day/year date format, the United Kingdom and much of Europe use a day/month/year format, and most countries in Asia use the year/month/day format. Confusion! Putting the date in the wrong format can result in the dreaded "Not in Log" result. Make sure you either spell out the Month or create columns on your QSL that leave no doubt as to the date of the QSO:
It should go without saying that you need to write out your QSL information in a legible manner. Always think that your QSL is being viewed by someone for whom English is
NOT their primary language. PRINT everything as clearly as possible. Better yet, use your Logging program to either print the QSO information directly onto the QSL Card or onto an adhesive label. This is not difficult to do and provides the clearest way to put all the necessary information onto your QSL. (The pre-printed information on my QSL in the image below has been grayed out to better show the QSO information I printed onto the blank QSL with my own computer & printer. Click on any image to see it larger.)
Where to have your QSL's printed? There are dozens of printers who will print QSL cards for you and you can even print them yourself. (See my Hint #1 Post
HERE for a way to print your own.) For several years I have been using
UX5UO Print to print my QSL's. Gennady is located in the Ukraine and appears to still be in business even with the current Russian war. As of October 2023, 21,972 unique callsigns from 320 DXCC countries have already been printed by "UX5UO print". You can get 1,000 Luxury cards printed with Full Color on the front and single color on the back for less than $85 including shipping! Below are my current QSL's which were printed by UX5UO from photos I provided. You can see the rear of one of the QSL's above - the grayed out area.
You do not need fancy QSL's but you do need at least a basic one to be able to send for the QSL's you want to collect. I have worked four New Ones on 6-M in the last 3 days and TWO of them are NOT on LoTW! Therefore, I need to send my QSL to them or request their card via OQSL (more on that method later.)
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