[CQ-Contest] IRCs, a "lighter topic"...

[David Levine]

My local post office (town of 10,000) doesn't seem to know what to do for
selling or bringing one in that I received. A larger PO 2 towns away sells
them and usually 1 person there knows what to do when I hand them an IRC.

http://www.n6hb.org/s-a/irc.htm is a site with some info. The bottom section
of the page seems to indicate what a postal clerk needs to do if you're
bringing in an IRC for an outgoing letter. I think they do nothing more then
take the IRC and end up putting on a 98 cent international stamp. The IRC
seems to be more like a 98 cent money order to them. Maybe next time I
receive an IRC I need to use, I will print out the instructions at the
bottom of that page and bring it with me to my local PO. I'll see if they
know what to do and if the instructions are accurate for the system they use
today.

As for attaching an IRC to a letter and dropping it in a corner mailbox, I
wouldn't think that is a good idea. If the IRC gets detached or the postal
worker is confused, it might get discarded or left in a pile for a long
time.

David - K2DSL

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Geoffrey Way <wayg at cape-vision.com> wrote:

> I recently had trouble using an IRC at a local branch Post Office when
> posting a QSL reply to a DX station I'd worked in a contest.
>
> They told me that they "couldn't process" my IRC.
>
> So I took the transaction to the Main branch downtown, and the
> clerk took it without a word before I even opened my mouth, and
> he said, "You're all set!" That was about 2 weeks ago.
>
> Then I was on my way to another town today, and tried the IRC transaction
> at the ONLY Post Office in that town. At first, they were all stumped,
> but didn't give up or refuse me. One of the clerks eventually identified
> the transaction successfully, stating it falls under the "Non-Postal
> Money Order" category. The head clerk said she'd never had one presented
> to her from outside the US in all 28 years of her service... They had all
> SOLD
> IRC's of course, though.
>
> Anyone ever have difficulties with getting local branches to accept IRC's?
> Do they have the right to refuse the transaction if they have computerized
> operations? Has anyone ever succeeded in putting an outbound article with
> an
> IRC in their curbside mailbox? I haven't bothered to try it yet, given the
> resistance
> at the local branch...
>
> Please, don't "go postal" in your replies... I just need the facts...
> --
>         Geoff Way, KA1IOR
>                   http://www.cape-vision.com/wayg/ka1ior
>
>
>