K3WWP's QSLing

HOME	AWARDS	CONTESTING	CTY HUNTING	CW	DX	HOMEBREWING	LINKS	LOGS	PROPAGATION	QRP	QSL	VISITORS LIST	Email Me

QSL Routes	Log Searches	QSLing Tips	My DX QSLs

Off Site Links >	ARRL Outgoing QSL Buro	ARRL Incoming QSL Buro	World Buros

A QSL IS THE FINAL COURTESY OF A QSO

These are my two latest QSL cards. At left is a home designed and printed card. At right is one of 100 cards I won as a NAQCC prize. They are from Cheap QSL Cards. As you see the cheap refers only to the regular price, not to the quality. Previously my cards were printed by Dennis, VE7DK. However he actually told me that it might be better to have them printed locally rather than pay the high customs price for shipping from Canada to the USA. He offered to help with the design if I needed it. If you would be interested in having Dennis print some cards for you, contact him via email at denliv@telus.net. Tell him K3WWP sent you. You can design your own card or Dennis can design one for you. Previously I designed mine and emailed Dennis a .jpg file. We emailed back and forth to fine tune the design, and after I gave the go ahead, the cards were printed and received here in only a week.

I firmly believe the saying below the pictures of my cards. While I do not QSL every contact I make, I will send my QSL card to anyone who wants it. I have all of my 94,000+ QSO's since 1963 filed on paper and/or in my computer, so if you ever worked me and need my card for any reason whatsoever, just send me your card, and I will send you mine. An SASE is appreciated, but by no means necessary. I have always answered every card received here, and will continue to do so. If you've ever sent me a QSL and didn't receive one in return, yours or mine got lost in the mail somewhere. Let me know, and I'll send another one.

One of the problems with QSLing used to be getting an up-to-date address for a ham. In the past, I have often had cards returned because of an incorrect address or someone having moved. The Internet has pretty much eliminated that problem. Many of the QSL address servers on the net are updated daily from the FCC and other sources, and it is possible to get the very latest up to date address for someone (if the ham has notified the FCC or other licensing authority of any change of address as he is legally required to do). You can access many of the servers directly from my Find a QSL Route page.

With the exorbitant cost of QSLing via regular mail, I believe that on-line or email QSLing has now become the preferred QSL method. There are currently two major players (plus some minor ones I won't mention here) in the field of electronic QSL's, each using a different system. The ARRL Logbook of the World (LotW) works as follows: "When both participants in a QSO submit matching QSO records to LotW, the result is a QSL that can be used for ARRL award credit." Other awards organizations will also be participating. The QSL is in the form of data and not viewable or printable as a card. You can click here to find out more about the ARRL LotW which became fully operational in September 2003. I now have all of my 94,000+ QSO's from 1963 to the end of the previous month in the LotW including my activity as KN3WWP, K3WWP, K3WWP/3 (Pittsburgh), and WA3IXO (Pittsburgh). The other major player - eQSL - provides actual viewable and printable electronic QSL cards in addition to providing proof of a QSO match. To find out more about eQSL enter your call in the following form. You may already have some eQSL's waiting for you. All of my QRP QSO's from 1993 through the end of the previous month are on-line for QSL retrieval at eQSL. So if you worked me during that time, there is at least one card there for you. The following is a fairly detailed analysis of the comparison between LoTW and eQSL. I have uploaded all of my QSOs from 1963 through August 31, 2022 to LoTW. For eQSL, I have uploaded all QSOs from 1993 through August 31, 2022. Because of the difference in the number of QSO uploaded to each service, a direct comparison of total numbers is practically meaningless. Therefore I depend on the percentage of return from each service to more fairly compare the totals for each. For the yearly comparison, since the number of QSOs uploaded to both services is the same for each individual year from 1993 through 2022, both the number of verifications and percentage of verifications can be directly compared. The two lines at the bottom marked T1 and T2 contain info as follows:
T1 is the total for both services from 1963 through 2022
T2 is the total for both services from 1993 through 2022

The conclusion seems to be that LoTW is much more effective in verifying a QSO by about 33.3% to 19.3% which is quite a difference.

Year QSOs LoTW Sent LoTW Rcvd Pct Vfd  
1963 1001    1001       0      0.00%                        
1964 3174    3174       3      0.09%     
1965 2931    2931       3      0.10%     
1966 5542    5542       8      0.14%     
1967 3279    3279       4      0.12%     
1968 2090    2090       4      0.19%     
1969  540     540       0      0.00%     
1970    4       4       0      0.00%     
1972   20      20       0      0.00%     
1973   32      32       0      0.00%     
1981  340     340       4      1.18%     
1982  225     225       3      1.33%     
1983  187     187       0      0.00%     

Year QSOs LoTW Sent LoTW Rcvd Pct Vfd            QSOs eQSL Sent eQSL Rcvd Pct Vfd 
1993  299     299       9      3.01%              299     299      18      6.02%
1994 3358    3358     294      8.76%             3358    3358     371     11.05%
1995 4777    4777     560     11.72%             4777    4777     627     13.13%
1996 3941    3941     460     11.67%             3941    3941     457     11.60%
1997 3898    3898     664     17.03%             3898    3898     574     14.73%
1998 4553    4553     969     21.28%             4553    4553     781     17.15%
1999 5615    5615    1359     24.20%             5615    5615    1094     19.48%
2000 4168    4168    1199     28.77%             4168    4168     910     21.83%
2001 3386    3386    1012     29.89%             3386    3386     781     23.07%
2002 3962    3962    1295     32.69%             3962    3962     873     22.03%
2003 2204    2204     828     37.57%             2204    2204     439     19.92%
2004 2112    2112     861     40.77%             2112    2112     395     18.70%
2005 2341    2341     971     41.48%             2341    2341     478     20.42%
2006 1905    1905     737     38.69%             1905    1905     459     24.09%
2007 2158    2158     927     42.96%             2158    2158     459     21.27%
2008 2004    2004     900     44.91%             2004    2004     444     22.16%
2009 1561    1561     634     40.61%             1561    1561     381     24.41%
2010 1219    1219     347     28.47%             1219    1219     313     25.68%
2011 2573    2573    1089     42.32%             2573    2573     607     23.59%
2012 2731    2731    1293     47.35%             2731    2731     713     26.11%
2013 3624    3624    1825     50.36%             3624    3624     870     24.01%
2014 2837    2837    1630     57.46%             2837    2837     650     22.91%
2015 1975    1975    1081     54.73%             1975    1975     472     23.90%
2016 1734    1734     873     50.35%             1734    1734     362     20.88%
2017 1609    1609     739     45.93%             1609    1609     324     20.14%
2018  917     917     421     45.91%              917     917     187     20.39%
2019  422     422     166     39.34%              422     422      62     14.69%
2020  989     989     535     54.10%              989     989     126     12.74%
2021  940     940     498     52.98%              940     940     114     12.13%
2022 1890    1890    1069     56.56%             1890    1890     282     14.92%
         
T1  95067   95067   25274     26.59%            75702   75702   14623     19.32%
         
T2  75702   75702   25245     33.35%            75702   75702   14623     19.32%

I am leaving the following info and table here for the time being. Although it is outdated, it does incorporate paper QSLs into the compariso of LoTW and eQSL. I probably will update it sometime in the future.

Here are my totals of the number of QSOs verified and percent of return from eQSL and LotW as of August 31, 2022 with regular QSL's added for comparison of all three methods. These stats are only for my QSOs made as K3WWP. The QSOs I made with other calls like N3AQC, WA3IXO, N3A, NY3EC and so forth are not included. If I would count them, the total QSOs would be over 100,000 now. Of course a lot of paper cards confirm more than one QSO, so my actual card total is less than the number of QSOs listed in that category. The Card/LoTW/eQSL category means a QSO has been verified by 1, 2, or all 3 above categories:

Method	Comments	Nr QSOs Verified	Nr Cards Sent	Pct
LotW	All QSOs since 1963	24,705	94,146	26.2
eQSL	All QSOs since 1990	14,422	74,781	19.3
"Paper" QSL's	Select QSOs since 1963	9,745	11,689	83.4
Card/LoTW/eQSL	All QSOs since 1963	37,079	94,146	39.4

QSLing is a very expensive proposition today. When I first started in ham radio in the 1960's it cost 4 cents to mail a QSL card, and most hams were glad to answer a QSL. A few years ago to be fairly certain of getting a card from someone by enclosing an SASE cost $1.10 (greater now in 2022 as it keeps increasing) in postage alone not to mention the cost of the card and the 2 envelopes involved.

There is no way to be absolutely certain of getting someone's QSL card. Even sending a reply card that requires the recipient simply to sign it and drop it in the mail nets only around a 90% return.

stat-counter.org