GlobalQSL ceased operating as Founders became SKs

With the passing of GlobalQSL’s founders the service ceased operation circa 2020.

Azar Hami 4X6MI and Paul Gross 4X6UU are both SK alas, Searching didn’t find obituaries or death notices

Hamm community forums suggest that Paul 4X6UU passed earlier and Azar 4X6MI continued on as his own health allowed until he died as well.

No mention of any successors and the website seemed to have run on as a “zombie-website” until its prepaid hosting expired.

GlobalQSL is no more.

Rest in Peace 4X6MI and 4X6UU.

73

Steve
K9ZW

More at the comments of https://k9zw.wordpress.com/2022/08/03/an-unusual-qsl-batch/

An Unusual QSL Batch

August 1st 2022 DX QSL card haul (was four envelopes)

The NIDXA W9 bureau (Northern Illinois DX Association) is awesome and fairly regularly I will get one their brown NIDXA envelopes with another batch of inbound QSL cards. (Link to NIDXA is https://qsl.nidxa.org/get-cards/)

Each envelope contains roughly 10-11 cards, an amount sized to best manage the postal costs.

Every now and then I might get two of these brown NIDXA envelopes in a given day, or back to back on successive days.

Monday August 1st (2022) my inbound mail was unusual, as there were Four NIDXA envelopes!  Each had the typical 10-11 cards in them!  Woo Hoo!

The breakdown by country was:

• 5 cards from Holland
• 1 card from Belgium
• 3 cards from the Ukraine
• 5 cards from Japan
• 29 cards from Germany

Quite a nice batch of QSL cards.

Other than replying to direct QSL cards received, I haven’t done a bulk DX QSL card print since well before the pandemic.

For my DX outbound I had been using GlobalQSL but they seemed to have shut shop during the pandemic.  I haven’t been able to find out the backstory, but with the modest credit I had with GlobalQSL I also depended on them for reference on to what date I had QSLed up to in my logs.

Once I figure out what date to start from and filter out domestic QSOs, I will to find a new service.

One that I am trying out is the Spanish QDure service – https://qsl.ure.es/en/ as they seem ready to handle the many thousand DX cards in arrears that I want to catch up on.  I’ve done 15,000 QSL cards as a trial order with QDure and will see how this works out.  As it turns out they will do Domestic QSLs for me as well.  Kind of curious how that works out, but it is worth the try!

Looking for any other suggestions where I can download my QSO data and have cards printed and sent to bureaus?

73

Steve
K9ZW

The Awesome QSL Drawings of Jeff K1NSS Heading to Print

K9ZW New QSL Card Proofs

Jeff K1NSS is a QSL card artist that you may enjoy checking out part of his portfolio at: https://www.jeffk1nss.com/

He had done designs for me back in 2015, most which never ended up being printed for a variety of reasons including moving and a need my end to be more focused on health.

I asked Jeff K1NSS to update the 2015 designs, and to create several new designs. All the updates are done and two of the three new designs are finished.

After reviewing several QSL printing services (I had previously had quotes from local printers) I’ve select QSL Concepts to print the first six cards. They are at: http://qslconcept.com/usa/

QSL Concepts “Fab” VE7FBN got it right away that I had ready to print front/back artwork. While Canadian based QSL Concepts uses a USA based affiliate for cards being delivered stateside.

I was able to tag the cards into a pricing program focused on clubs, and anticipate the new cards arriving about ten business days down the road (might be sooner!).

This batch of card designs includes:

• A retro boat-anchor voice card
• Two new designs based on a concept I have to accommodate my FlexRadio operating conditions, one in B&W and one in color
• A digital mode card
• A Washington Island QTH card emphasizing my operations from George W9EVT’s monster-shack
• A Washington Island card intended for guests at the W9EVT monster-shack which I will give to George W9EVT

QSL Cards – K9ZW 2021 Update

Recently had a couple people inquire on where I am at with QSLing, particularly on paper QSL cards.

As of January 2021 here is where I am at:

eQSL & QRZ.com postings – these are done weekly and should be up to date.
LoTW postings – this is done roughly once a month, and would be up to date through 2020
Paper QSLing by SASE – is still on hiatus but expected to resume soon, and will take a while to catch up
GlobalQSL DX QSL Cards – on hiatus until I have designs – will likely be Q3 2021 before I get back at this QSL method

My formal QSL cards became obsolete when my home QTH station has dismantled and my operations moved to my work QTH’s tower and my new home QTH antennas. Our home move was complicated, as we bought the home we moved to with much of its contents, leaving us an extra tier of tasks as we moved. I didn’t get at having new cards made right away. With the CCP-Virus issues my card designer has been working remote, so the new designs are not finished nor are new cards printed.

In normal days I would expect to be able to put a timeline on a small project like this, but in our CCP-Virus disrupted world setting a deadline is unrealistic.

So I’ll fall back on that old two word way to explain that it will happen on its own schedule with a promise of “Soon Come..”

73

Steve
K9ZW

Getting my QSLing Up to Date!

EDIT August 2022 – With the passing of GlobalQSL’s founders the service ceased operation circa 2020.  More at the comments of https://k9zw.wordpress.com/2022/08/03/an-unusual-qsl-batch/

Making an effort here to get my QSLing up to date.  Using Global QSL http://www.globalqsl.com/ the vast majority of my DX QSLs should be caught up.  From the No Manager/No GlobalQSL/No Bureau courtesy information from GlobalQSL of the last roughly 1100 cards about 7 or 8 will have to be done here manually as directs.

While this takes care of my DX catch up, I am at least 400 cards behind on domestic QSLs.  I had been pretty good until until I bluntly just got a bit bored with the paperwork side of QSLing and let that side slip.

I do eQSLs as well http://www.eqsl.cc/ automatically as as much of a back-up log as anything, and about once every couple years I put up with the silly technical hurdles of LoTW and upload my logs there.

I’ll have to see about setting up a label printer and doing the domestic QSLs in arrears, so I can get back to even up.

BTW here are my current GlobalQSL card front faces.

K9ZW Home QTH QSL Frontside Image

and

K9ZW Washington Island WI001L QSL Frontside Image

My domestic cards are not all similar, as I often use a Lake Michigan Theme card I had printed up.

73

Steve
K9ZW

K9ZW Winter QSL Effort

Seems I have really never tamed the QSL Card Monster. I have responded to all direct QSL card requests, but certainly have fallen way behind on doing my domestic QSL send-outs, logging QSLs and physically settling on a QSL storage system.

I also have a large number of DX QSLs to upload to GlobalQSL for Printing and Distributing.

As for eQSL, that is largely up to date, as I tend to use eQSL as my offsite log backup.

I’ll have to decide if futzing with LoTW (Logbook of the World) is going to happen, as I personally find the process annoying and unrewarding.

The QSL Card fronts in this post are few of the designs I use. I have another paper design, a couple GlobalQSL designs which are printed by GlobalQSL, and several eQSL designs depending on the QTH & Date of operations.

Guess it is time to knuckle down and get these QSL cards done!

73

Steve
K9ZW