[CQ-Contest] W5FE DX QSL Service

[Bruce Sawyer]

This morning I finally managed to dig my way down to the bottom of my
pile of bureau QSLs.  For a brief glorious moment, it was a fact that I
had answered every QSL ever sent to me (with a return requested) and I
had no pending QSL cards to answer.  How many other contesters can make
the same statement?  But alas this afternoon the mailman undid all that
again, so the victory over paperwork was short-lived.  I got another big
stack from something called the "WF5E DX QSL Service".  Can anybody
explain to me what this is and how it operates?  All I know is that I
got a stack of QSL cards PLUS an envelope with postage already affixed
to return the lot.

Looking through the cards in this stack, it is obvious that they are not
shotgunned QSL requests (e.g. ON4UN, K6LA, by their own admission). 
These cards came from guys who knew what they were doing when they asked
for my return QSL and were asking for stuff they really wanted (e.g.
N0AX et al on 160m to ZF, lots of 80m contacts to HP).  All the cards
are from the US, asking for confirmation for contacts I made when
abroad, and most are from guys I know to be very serious operators.  It
would appear to me that there is friction in this service (i.e., cost)
because there were people who worked me on bunches of bands who only
asked for 160 or 80 or something exotic like that.  However, a lot of
these cards were for contacts made a year ago, so you can't claim it's a
speedy way around the bureau.  So what is this all about?  There are
others like this which I get periodically, but I've never understood how
these things work.

Bruce, N6NT


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