I had mentioned in previous postings I prefer paper cards over electronic cards by a wide margin. I have found out over the years the old greenback or green stamp works better then any electronic means on the market.
So, let’s take a look at the results I have had over the last year with Electronic services versus the paper card return.
Looking at QRZ.com for the last year I have been in the process of converting all of my paper logs to QRZ electronic logs. This represents about 60 years of ham radio and for the first of my entries I am logging only dx contacts, I am logging about twenty five contacts a day from my paper logs and this is a monumental job.
As a result of this and I realize some of the contacts are archaic and many of the ops have gone to the great rig in the sky. However, this leaves about 2000 qsos in the last few years, maybe more to confirm contacts via QRZ. The return rate is pitiful around 1% of the total logged contacts.
What I have found is there are a lot of stations that indicate they have seen my request for confirmation, but have done nothing to confirm the contact. It involves checking your entry, either on qrz, or via their means of logging. I have lots of stations who have not responded even in the simplest request.
EQSL is another source of e confirmations,but wait all is not well on this site either. Before you send a dx station a card via EQSL do this to investigate. In the middle of the left side of the home page, you will see an icon with some Binoculars. This is your search engine for the site.
Type in the DX stations call and you will be prompted to check to see if there are any qsl requests waiting. By using the search icon, you will also be told if the dx station is a member of E QSL. Now for the good part, by doing what I had mentioned, if a long list of qsl requests are listed and I am talking into the thousands I just do not bother to add my call to the long list. Many are ancient requests and may never be answered, you are just wasting your time and effort in requesting confirmation.
So, why do you think replies via these two services are sadly neglected? The answer is DX stations can collect green stamps from avid dxers. Now, some reply and others pocket the money, but it did not take long to catch on that sending qsl cards can be a lucrative business. Since the standard request is $3.00 I am sure with the exchange rate and postage there is still some left over, maybe in our money as much as twenty five cents. It does not take long to pile up a little cash at that rate.
With the other two services, no green stamps, so why bother? Personally, I have not used LOTW it consumed far too much time and netted me nothing. I entered in about 50 calls of DX stations I had confirmed via a paper card in the last two years. The DX stations indicated they had uploaded their log to LOTW, yet the site never found a thing. So, I have put it on hold once again. I dumped the software in my older computer and have not bothered with it on my newer one.
Still, the paper cards returns are much higher then the two services listed, the old $$$$ works very well in this pursuit.
