GlobalQSL, first impressions

Due to all sorts of reasons my new QSL cards weren’t printed, and I looked for ways to make things easier. One of them was to make use of eQSL (link), which I did, but not many amateurs use that service.

When GlobalQSL (link) came into the picture, I thought I’d give it a try. GlobalQSL is not an electronic service. I mean: it’s not an eQSL look-a-like. Cards are actually printed on high quality paper (full color, both sides) and sent through the bureau. Apart from that, there’s a lot of electronic processing going on.

After creating an account, you can download their QSL card design program. It takes a bit of time and experimenting to get it right, but working with the program is not too hard. When you’re happy with the results, you can upload your design to the GlobalQSl server. For $82, you will get 1000 cards printed, including distribution through the bureau.

You can enter your QSOs manually, or upload them in ADIF format. Multiple QSOs with the same station will be printed on one card, saving time, money and cards.

Pros (so far):

• Easy, saves a lot of time
• reasonably priced
• real cards
• price includes delivery (bureau)
• handles multiple designs and/or call signs

Cons (so far):

• Slow. Cards won’t be be printed immediately: the interval is every 2000 cards or 2 months, which ever comes first. (*)

If you are a fanatic DX or contest operator, 2000 cards is nothing. For an average Ham however, 2000 cards is something that could take a year or more. QSL bureaus are notorious for being slow, and 2 months of extra delay isn’t helping. Maybe the interval could be changed to one month?

I also ordered 100 blank cards, which will be sent to my QTH. Let’s see how fast they can print and deliver them. I’ll keep you posted.

(*) Update 10/11/2007, 14.34 UTC

Paul 4X6UU from GlobalQSL made a comment on this article about the “Cons”:

“GlobalQsl prints the cards every time there are 2000 cards to be printed to a IARU bureau. Having thousands of users uploading ADIF files every day, this means that we print cards every day for a few IARU bureaus. The only bureaus that are printed once every 2 months are the small and rare ones, like HB0 for example.

The every 2 month printing is done even if there are only a few QSLs for that specific bureau.”

Completely off topic

Today I ran into a funny (disturbing might be a better word) website (link), counting the germs on your keyboard. Just answer some questions about your way of living, cleaning habits and such and you will get an estimate of the number of germs living on your keyboard.

I hesitated a while if I would publish the result of my keyboard, but here they are: there are about 1,662,780 germs on my keyboard right now. Yuck.

30 Contesting Tips

I’m not much of a contest guy, but I really liked the contesting tips and other related articles, written by K9JY. One of the better Ham Radio blogs around, and added to my Blogroll immediately.

Linking To Other Ham Radio Blogs

The more I surf the Net, the more Ham Radio blogs I find. One of the best resources is Technorati.com, a mix of a database and a blog search engine. Technorati has a way of ranking blogs, which they call ‘authority’. If a blog links to you (in an article, in a page or by means of a permanent link in the Blogroll), Technorati will add one ‘point’ to your authority.

Personally, I think that the word ‘authority’ is misplaced. Even the worst blog in the world can get a high authority, just by publishing one really stupid article – so stupid in fact, that a number of other blogs link to it just because it’s so stupid. Nevertheless, many blog owners seem to like the idea. Apparently, a high authority gives some bloggers a good feeling.

Still, I believe that it’s not a bad idea to link to other Ham Radio blogs. Not to all of them, but to a selection of the finest. I wouldn’t link to blogs that are dead for over a year, for example. It’s also good for your Google PageRank® when someone links to you. The higher your PageRank, the more chance you have to be listed in the first Google result pages.

A higher than average PageRank is something you can only get when you deserve it – people won’t link to you unless your content stands out of the crowd. Google calculates all links from the Internet (not only from blogs, but from any page or website), and will have a major impact on search results.