Having convinced myself that QSL cards are indeed an important detail in our daily amateur radio lives, the question becomes how can this practice be saved and restored? Assuming the cost of a printed QSL card purchased in bulk is around 30 cents each, and an optional envelope 20 cents, we’re looking at roughly 50 cents before postage. First-class postage these days costs 73 cents though post card stamps are 56 cents so there are a few options for savings.

But these numbers aren’t static. The rise in postal rates has been steady and frequent and there’s no reason to believe that might slow down. The current worst case situation for QSLs is sending a card, in an envelope, with an SASE inside. That comes to $2.16 per QSL at today’s rate. Send 500 of those a year and you’re out more than a thousand dollars, an expensive proposition for any of us.

That’s the main reason why “free” Logbook of the World confirmations seemed like such a good deal. And it is, if your interest is only collecting ARRL awards. But LoTW provides only a check mark on a big spreadsheet intended for ARRL awards. There’s no place for photos, personal notes, equipment, antenna or how much power was used, etc. And as we have seen this last summer, LoTW comes with the possibility of problems. We know now the original system, which is still in use today, was assembled with baling wire and duct tape twenty years ago and there is apparently nothing to replace it on the immediate horizon. It’s free, for now, but rumblings and rumors persist that ARRL will one day assign a fee to use it.

We need a completely new service, and it’s probably best if it’s not from ARRL, that permits storage and retrieval of QSL card images. These could be from a static image that could be edited to add pertinent QSO data along with comments, etc. Someone would log into the system, see that they have waiting QSLs that hadn’t been viewed, and have the option of downloading those images or simply viewing them online. It would be nearly the same as traditional QSLing, but without the postal burden - or the actual paper card.

Of course the ARRL (and others) won’t accept these confirmations for award credit, but who cares if you aren’t interested in ARRL credit? And if you are, you can continue to use LoTW too. No harm, no foul. A system like this would provide an option to inexpensively send a reasonable facsimile of an actual QSL card complete with photo, comments, and everything that makes a QSL card special.

While there are services now that allow these to be sent via email, I think it best that whatever comes next be a service where retrieval is optional and doesn’t come via unsolicited email. I simply want to log-in on occasion, and download whatever is available for me. I’d be willing to pay $20-$30 a year for such a service so I think there is a potential business opportunity here for someone, doesn’t matter where, to jump on and build something fresh and new.

Let’s fix this and resume the quaint, cozy practice of collecting QSL cards.