A series of "Tips and Tricks" for obtaining a QSL when normal means fail.
Recently a friend told me he was trying to obtain a QSL for a contact that was several years old. He had sent his QSL + SASE to the QSL Manager but the manager replied with a note saying he recently had downsized, moved, and no longer had any blank QSL's. The manager DID state he had uploaded the logs of the DX station to the QRZ Logbook and my friend's contact WAS listed there. However, since he had no blank QSL cards, he was unable to confirm the contact.
My method of solving such a problem is to send some BLANK QSL cards to the QSL Manager. I learned this trick from Steve, KØCS, (now a SK) several decades ago. YI1BGD in Iraq came on the air in the late 1970's and Steve worked them for an ATNO but could not get a QSL. So, he had 100 QSL cards professionally printed and he airmailed them to Iraq. He then sent his QSL + SAE +$5 EVERY MONTH for a year until he got it confirmed. Unfortunately it was not with one of the QSL's he had printed! Still, I learned from that trick and have used it on a few occasions to secure a QSL for a needed State or Grid.
To help my friend get the QSL he needed I found a website where you can quickly design a Blank QSL. The site will produce a PDF file which you can use to print on your own printer or at a local print shop. Then you just send the Blank QSL's to the QSL Manager and ask him to fill one out. Here is the website I used: QSL Card Creator. You can make just a very simple, basic QSL or get creative by adding graphics. Below is the Blank QSL I created for my friend. It took about 5 minutes to do this.
I gave my friend 6 of these Blank QSL's (which I printed on some card stock) to send to the QSL Manager. I will post back here his results.
BONUS HINT: You can use this method to print Blank QSL's for yourself to confirm contacts you may have made while portable - like Field Day or POTA.
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The A35TR QSL Manager DID respond by filling out one of the blank QSL's and he returned it to my friend. The Blank QSL preparation was well worth the minimum effort it took in order to receive a confirmation for a New One which had seemed impossible to get confirmed in a normal manner.
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