[CQ-Contest] www.QSLL.com

[Pete Smith]

I just got an e-mail from a friend, asking my opinion of the service offered by www.QSLL.com, which will print, fill out and mail QSL cards for contesters.  It turns out that on their web site they cite a message I posted on CQ-Contest back in 2002 about reducing QSLing costs, hence my friend's query.

If you go to the site, you may discover that the link to my message doesn't work - it should be  http://lists.contesting.com/archives//html/CQ-Contest/2002-03/msg00018.html.  They compare their service's pricing to my home efforts, and their comparative analysis is actually a little less favorable to them than it should be.  My analysis was for 5800 QSOs on 4000 cards.  Assuming 4000 cards at 77 Euros, with filling and mailing I calculate exactly US$248 at today's interbank exchange rate, the same cost for their service as doing it my way.  However, that assumes that my labor has no value, and also does not include ink for the ink-jet printer, time and gasoline spent going to and from the printer, post office, etc.  And finally, international postal rates from the US have increased since 2002.  The bottom line is that their service, assuming it is reliable, could be very good value.

I can't keep track of all the players, but this appears to involve YU1AO, who is, I think, an established QSL printer.  There appear to be cross connections to YT6A/KO3A, the Sky Contest Club, and contesting.info, which is a near-clone of contesting.com. The pricing is very attractive - $99 for 4000 one-color one side QSLs, for example.  The only unrealistic thing I see is that they say they will manually complete the QSL cards for a penny per QSO - even assuming six QSOs a minute, that would only be $3.60 an hour, not what I'd call a living wage.

And here, finally, is my question.  Has anyone used this service, and had confirmation that it is working as advertised?  If you have just used their QSL printing, how did that work out?

73, Pete N4ZR
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