QSL Cards

Back in the day (late 70s / early 80s) stations in the 26 division where rare, so when skip conditions were right there'd be a pile-up of stations waiting to talk to me.

I'd have to send a QSL card first, and hope to get one in return, I couldn't risk giving out my 20 on air. I always operated mobile, I never ever transmitted from home for fear of a visit from Mr Fox in the dreaded Yellow detector van with the fuzz in tow.

Collecting and sending QSL cards became a hobby in itself, and over time I amassed a couple of boxes full of cards, including postcards from 40 different States showing the official state birds, flowers and whatnot.

I was looking through the boxes the other day, and was surprised just how far my signal traveled back then, I have QSL cards ranging from New South Wales to British Columbia.

Sometimes I'd get back more than just a card. One wag sent me a full sized Bennington flag but given Wikipedia hadn't been conceived back then I was clueless about the flag and the irony went right over my head...

One of these days I'll sweet talk my daughter into running all the QSL cards through the scanner, but for now here are a few of the cards I used to send out.

As always, click on an image to see it full sized.