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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.


Wavescan 509, October 3, 2004

Unusual QSL Cards

Just recently we received two QSL cards that are very different indeed. They are made out of shiny tin-plate. This got us thinking, and we began a search to discover what other materials have been used for the production of QSL cards. You will be quite surprised at the variety that we discovered, and that is our opening topic in Wavescan today.

Now, we are all well aware of what we would call a standard QSL card. These are printed QSL cards, and they are printed on what we would call a thin cardboard. This style of QSL card is so numerous that it is hardly necessary to give an example. However, at random we did pull out a QSL of this style, and it is from Radio Lara, YVMO, in Barquisimeto in Venezuela, a shortwave station with 10 kW on 4800 kHz, as it was back in the year 1975.

Less common is a QSL card that is printed on thick cardboard. A QSL card in this style comes from station 4XD in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1960, with 250 watts on 1430 kHz. Station 4XD lays a valid claim as the oldest independent radio station in the British Commonwealth. A few other stations in Australia and the United States also printed their QSLs on thick cardboard, and this was somewhat of a necessity during the war years due to the fact that standard thin cardboard was not readily available.

Going to the other extreme is a QSL card printed on paper, an oxymoron if you please. Several well-known examples come from Radio Tirana in Albania. Our example is dated in 1995 with Radio Tirana on the air with 100 kW from their shortwave base located in Cerrik.

A very unusual QSL card comes from a station with a very appropriate callsign, station KICY in Nome, Alaska. This QSL card is dated in 1992, with KICY on 850 kHz with 10 kW, and the QSL text is actually stamped onto a three-ply tourist postcard. This wooden QSL postcard came through the post in a damaged condition and it is contained in a small plastic bag on which is printed an apology from the postal system.

It is understood that there have been a few QSL cards printed on plastic, soft thin plastic sheeting, and hard ribbed plastic. Memory would suggest that QSL cards of this nature have been manufactured in Japan, though we don't hold any of this style in our collection.

At least three different mediumwave stations in the United Sates have issued QSL cards that are embossed into sheet copper. The stations that we know about are all in Montana, which must be a copper producing state, and they are:

KGIR Butte 1 kW 1340 kHz
KPFA Helena .25 kW 1210 kHz
KRBM Bozeman .25 kW 1420 kHz

All three of these copper plate QSL cards show an embossed tourist picture in relief, and they are all dated in the early 1940s. Several mediumwave DXers in New Zealand heard these stations some 60 years ago and added a very unusual QSL card to their collections. These three examples are all lodged with the large QSL collection in the Hocken Library in Dunedin, New Zealand.

The noted Arthur Cushen in New Zealand also received one of these copper QSL cards from station KGIR back around that era, and this QSL was listed as one of the items in his entry into our 1995 annual DX contest. At that time we were searching for the Five Best QSL Cards, and Arthur's entry was the world winner for that year.

In our QSL collection we do not have a copper QSL card, though we do have a copper QSL stamp. Back in 1940 station KMOX in St. Louis, Missouri was issuing a QSL letter to verify listener reception reports. Attached to the letter is a QSL stamp made out of copper that was somewhat similar in design and size to the old EKKO QSL stamps that we have referred to on several occasions here in Wavescan. The copper QSL stamp on the letter from KMOX is now quite dark from age.

Now for the tin plate QSL. Recently several tin plate QSLs were offered for sale on e-bay, so we procured a couple. This card is more than twice the size of a regular postcard; it is printed in red and black on both sides; and it advertises the products of the manufacturer, National Steel Corporation in Weirton, West Virginia. This company is now out of business.

However, it is indeed a genuine QSL card. On the side with a map of the continental United States is a radio antenna and the QSL text, left blank, to be filled in by an amateur radio operator after he has completed his QSO contact with another amateur radio operator.

The question we would like to ask is this: How ever do you write on a tin plate to fill in the QSL details?