[UK-CONTEST] QSL policy

[Jonathan G0DVJ]

Hi all,

Interesting thread... I don't think I need to include all the previous discussion .. you all know what I'm replying too.  [Sorry pet peeve that often people on lists / in emails just reply and leave miles and miles of thread added to it when unnecessary... oh well!] 

Two points to comment on re QSL policy...

1) The smallest club I am involved with (HARIG) uses M4U in a few contests a year and loads of QSLs are generated of course.  The club doesn't need cards from others, nor solicits them.  Many large contest groups just QSL 100% ... auto printing labels and bulk sending to the bureau after each event, because this is easier than sorting out who wants a card in due course and who doesn't.   This is not an option for a small group running operations on a shoestring and with limited skilled manpower/IT to do the legwork.  Our policy until now in HARIG has been to QSL 100% return to those who send to us.  However even this is becoming unmanageable.   It means the process is long drawn out over possibly years after the event, when people involved have long moved on for example.  It is bitty, requiring a decent archived log database to mark who cards have come from, when and by how.  etc etc.   So we are considering changing policy to electronic confirmation only, by eQSL and LoTW.   We would probably honour the small numbers of  direct QSLs than come in too of course where SASEs are provided.  But the bulk selective bureau QSLs are a PITA.  But this will not please those who hold dear the idea of QSLs being the final courtesy. Maybe if someone takes the QSL part of the hobby so seriously, ... if that's their bag ... then they will be prepared to use the direct approach?  And be prepared to wait a long time before the hapless 'volunteer' who does the cards catches up with it.

2) The farce in all of this is that we have bits of card being sent across the planet which no-one wants.   The 100% send per event approach which the big groups do (and I understand why as above) includes many cards to other contest groups who don't want the card and have no use for it.   Those groups then whether they adopt the same 100% send policy OR like HARIG use the 100% reply policy will then also send a card in the opposite direction, particularly if the process has been automated to save time!   Bizarrely, two pieces of card are wastefully exchanged and ultimately ignored/destroyed/recycled.  And this is often repeated for each QSO on each band in the major contests year after year.  That is crazy when we have an Internet that with the right organisation behind it, could form an infrastructure that instantly informs people AND potentially their QSL/label generation software what the policy is and whether to initiate the process.  

The way the QSL bureaux operate hasn't changed over decades... maybe it is time it did?   I would place more value on my national society (and others around the globe) being an informative truth source for my QSL policy than for bulking up pieces of card to be shipped in and out.  But it also needs everyone to be informed enough to know and want to check the QSL policy of people they exchange some numbers with in a competitive event before they send cards.  Maybe if it's such an important aspect to them, they should check before they make the QSO? !

73,
Jonathan G0DVJ 
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