THE QSL CARD....AT WHAT COST?

During the last days of the Vietnam War, the South Vietnamese government station
VTVN was broadcasting news of the war around the world. (from the author's collection)

THE QSL CARD......AT WHAT COST?

I wrote the following article for the April 2015 issue of The Spectrum Monitor magazine. Check out their website for details on how to subscribe to this great publication. 

UPDATE: At the time of writing the original article, Radio Australia was still an international shortwave broadcaster!

For many years, the Mexican station XEPPM Radio Educación on 6185 kHz has not regularly verified reception reports sent by listeners. However, recently there was a sudden spate of QSL cards and letters received by a handful of lucky listeners. These DXers had the persistence to keep writing reception reports including many follow-up reports, along with cash in US dollars, International Reply Coupons, stamps, postcards, covering letters, and all manner of inducements in an effort to elicit and cajole a response from this well-known non-verifying broadcaster.

Indeed, I was delighted to hear that one of my U.S. friends had received his envelope of goodies from the station after nearly four years of numerous letters following-up on his original reception report. I congratulated him on his success, his luck and his persistence in this venture. In the same week, I saw reports of three other DXers also receiving responses from Radio Educación.

At this stage, it is too early to say if the station has changed it’s policy on verifying reception reports or if this was simply a XEPPM staff member taking a few moments and a personal interest in responding to a few listener letters. Whatever the motivation of the station management, the gesture certainly made a small number of DXers extremely happy.

In the same week as this exciting news broke, I happened to also read an excellent online blog post by Hans, the station manager of the coastal maritime radio service Vardø Radio (LGV). This station has the responsibility for maritime communications along the coast of the North Sea and Barents Sea between Tromsø and the Norway-Russian border.

Hans received a reception report from an Italian DXer claiming to have heard a NAVTEX transmission from Berlevaag Radio on 518 kHz. Our station manager, Hans, points out that “Berlevaag Radio” hasn’t operated for decades! And, although the transmitter and antennas are still there, the facility is operated remotely from Vardø Radio. Secondly, there has never been a NAVTEX transmission from that site! Thirdly, the claimed time of reception and “proof” of reception indicated it was obviously a fake report.

Hans generously took the time to send back an email to the DXer, advising that he could not confirm the report and included a transmission schedule detailing all modes broadcast by his station. The listener fired back a rather rude response which included the following sentence: “I demmand (sic) you confirme (sic) reception report!”

Unfortunately, the exchange between the kindly station manager and the “DXer” escalated to the point where further responses from the Italian listener cannot be reproduced here! However, you can read all about it in Hans’ BARENTSDX blog post at https://barentsdx.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/i-demmand-you-confirme-reception-report/

The history of the QSL card and verification letter is almost as old as radio itself. The exchange of cards after a contact (QSO) is still an important part of the amateur radio hobby for many Hams worldwide. And listeners find this part of the hobby especially fascinating, proudly amassing vast collections of cards and letters from stations across the globe.

But things have changed somewhat for shortwave listeners in the last 15 years. With the disappearance from the bands of many international and domestic shortwave broadcasters, it’s much harder now to gather together a large QSL collection. Furthermore, those broadcasters still in operation are often no longer responsible for passing on listeners reports to their “technical department”…because the technical department no longer exists! Many stations now outsource (sub-contract) the distribution of their broadcasts to other companies that are specifically set up to handle the technical management and implementation of their transmissions.

A 1971 QSL confirming Radio Australia’s Darwin transmissions
(from the author’s collection)

As an example, for years now Radio Australia has been outsourcing its broadcasts to a large multi-layered, independent broadcasting transmission provider called Broadcast Australia. This company owns and operates the existing Shepparton transmitter site and determines the frequencies and schedules for Radio Australia broadcasts. The programming division of Radio Australia has virtually nothing to do with Broadcast Australia. So, if an overseas listener writes to Radio Australia commenting on reception conditions at their location, none of that feedback gets back to Broadcast Australia. This situation is the same for quite a number of international broadcasters these days.

A few broadcasters are still relying on regular communication with their nominated monitors - DXers with specific technical skills who report back every week or so with detailed notes on how reception has been in the targeted region. Other stations have abandoned the monitors and are using global remote receivers to assess their signal quality.

So over the years, in the view of many shortwave broadcasters, the importance and relevance of reception reports have diminished significantly. Detailed technical information about signal strength, interference, and propagation characteristics are of no interest to a station’s programming staff. They just want to know your thoughts on their program content. Their reply with a QSL card is merely a glorified acknowledgement of your report and a “thank you” for taking the time to write and provide feedback, in the hope that you will continue listening in the future. Call it a marketing exercise!

And, of course, many smaller domestic shortwave stations are largely focused on their own local and national audiences. They are not especially interested in receiving reception reports from international listeners. If they do, indeed, reply to a DX report, they are often responding only as an act of courtesy and generosity.

Europe and North America have flourishing pirate radio communities. The vast majority of these stations are active verifiers with brightly colored cards and e-QSLs. Of course, many of these operators were once SWLs themselves and understand the significance of the reception report. They are keen to build their audiences, and genuinely interested to know how far their signals are travelling. After all, they have both the programming and technical departments of their illegal operations all wrapped up in one! Here in Australia, we haven’t had pirate activity on a significant scale for many years now, mainly due to a very proactive and successful approach to law enforcement. And the signals from European and American pirates don’t reach our shores due to their much lower power.

So where does this leave the shortwave listener’s much-loved QSL card collection? Amateur radio operators still exchange cards and e-QSLs. SWL’s who monitor ham transmissions are often acknowledged by many operators happy to exchange cards with them. But for the SWBC DXer, it’s certainly much harder to build a collection these days.

Which brings us around to the title of this week's post. As we have seen here, it is clear that in at least a few cases, persistence can sometimes pay off when a listener sends follow-ups to their original reception reports. But at what point does sending multiple follow-ups constitute harassment of stations that don’t really care about receiving your reports? Not to mention the high costs of postage, stationery, dollar bills, postcards, stamps, and other inducements incurred by the listener. And, as we have also seen here, abusing broadcasters because they don’t deliver on your requests for a QSL certainly doesn’t work!

SWLs need to be mindful that when a station acknowledges a reception report, responding to your request requires time, energy, money and motivation to divert their limited staff and resources. If reports are no longer useful for many stations, then there have to be other reasons why a station would bother replying to you. Some listeners include superficial comments relating to the broadcasts heard. Token comments can usually be seen by station staff for what they are worth - not very much! Listeners who take the time to include meaningful observations and feedback about programs will have a much better chance of gaining the attention and interest of station producers.

73 and have a great weekend, everyone!

Rob Wagner VK3BVW

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