Ken (right) and Ed

Ken received his appointment as incoming QSL manager on September 24, 2007 from Ed Fraser, VE7EF, who is the RAC Director for BC and the Yukon.

QSLing via the Bureau

Using a QSL bureau is by far the least expensive way to collect QSL cards. Most countries have a bureau where cards are collected from hams within the country and then forwarded in bulk to countries all over the world. Using bulk mail to send your cards to the bureau and for them to forward the cards to other countries cost much less for postage than mailing individual cards. Both RAC in Canada and ARRL in the U.S.A. offer QSL card outgoing services for amateurs who are members. Incoming cards can be received whether or not you are a member however if you send out a lot of QSL cards membership alone is worth the cost of the bureau service. The RAC BC Incoming QSL Bureau only accepts incoming cards for distribution to Amateurs in Canada.

If you want to pick cards up directly from Ken he needs time to pull the cards from the files and get them ready for you. Contact him well in advance to give him adequate time to arrange a pick up time, do not just drop by.

If your club wants to have cards sent to meetings the executive of your club will have to make arrangements with Ken as per the following.

In order to update the bureau records Ken needs the following information please:

1. The mailing address I should ship your club's cards to.
2. Your club's designated contact person (if you have one) for QSL Bureau matters.
3. An up-to-date list of club members (if any) who wish to receive their personal incoming cards via your club. This list is not to be confused with a simple club roster. As mentioned above, some club members likely maintain their own account with the bureau and will continue to prefer to receive their cards directly from the bureau. Also many amateurs belong to more than one club.

Please note, any amateur can receive incoming QSL cards via the bureau. It is not necessary to belong to RAC or any other organization to use the incoming bureau.

Since taking over the bureau and reviewing the cards in the files Ken has noticed there are many, many cards sitting in the files for amateurs he has no information on. He is hoping to forward these cards to their intended recipients with the help of the clubs. There is a good chance there are cards sitting here in the bureau files for members of your club who do not know they have cards holding. Some of these may be for new amateurs or people who have not been active for some time. Please ask any members of your club who are (or have been in the past) active on HF, even if it was just the occasional qso to check if they have cards. They can do this by having your club send Ken a list or they can contact him directly (ve7uq@shaw.ca) check the QSL Bureau website for more information at www.qsl.comm.sfu.ca. Ken is planning to eventually post a list of BC amateurs with unclaimed cards waiting in the bureau. This is a work in progress and makes take some time to complete. Your club will be advised when this list is posted on the website.