Jim
IOTA now has a viable electronic QSL method based on matches for your logs
uploaded to ClubLog. I applied and received an award recently using that method.
73 de Prasad VU2PTT
Sent from my iPhone
> On 31-Dec-2016, at 1:39 PM, Jim Brown <k9yc@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri,12/30/2016 6:10 PM, W0MU wrote:
>> Postage overseas is beyond ridiculous these days. K1ZM said it costs more to
>> ship his book overseas than the book costs!
>
> Yes. The cost of international postage and shipping have made paper QSLs a
> luxury that few of us can afford. Sure, having a paper card for a rare or
> difficult QSO is nice, but those costs have made it an anachronism.
> Electronic QSLing has to be our standard practice. Last I looked, my average
> cost for mailing my card and an SASE to a DX station has reached $3.50 and
> was fast approaching $4 as more countries raise their rates. As several
> others have noted, that's not ARRL's fault!
>
>>
>> I don't support everything the ARRL does but I am not sure they are
>> completely to blame here.
>
>
> From where I sit, LOTW is one of the very best things ARRL has done for ham
> radio in the last 20 years. I no longer bother with awards that won't accept
> LOTW or eQSL. That rules out county awards and it rules out IOTA unless and
> until IOTA gets a workable and user-friendly electronic method going that
> doesn't require paper cards.
>
> I agree with Charly that the biggest problem with LOTW is getting more hams
> to use it. I don't know what the obstacles are, but it needs serious
> attention. I think part of it is motivation -- ham radio is pretty much run
> by we old guys who don't have a dog in the race. We have our 300+ countries,
> our Honor Rolls, our band slots, so many of us don't "get" what it means to
> new hams. I'm certainly aware of it -- when I moved across the country 10
> years ago, I started over on all my awards. It doesn't seem fair to me to
> count QSOs made 2,000 miles closer to the DX. LOTW has saved my thousands of
> dollars in postage as I've filled nearly 2,200 band and mode slots. That's
> enough to buy a couple of nice radios!
>
> As to the boxes and boxes of JA cards that have clogged the Bureau system to
> the point of paralysis -- I have boxes full and no longer respond to JA
> cards. Indeed, several years ago, I stopped responding to any paper cards
> from stations that don't put their logs on LOTW. When I was a kid in ham
> radio, we said that a QSL was the final courtesy of a QSO, and we paid the
> postage ourselves. In 2016, LOTW is the final courtesy of a QSO.
>
> I'm happy to kick in to support a DXpedition, but I'm unwilling to dump my
> retirement savings into the world's postal systems.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
>
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