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QSL CARD REQUIREMENTS

Simply put, a complete QSL Card is essential to the awards program of The 3905 Century Club.  Those just starting out who don't have QSL cards might consider temporarily printing their own using a card image designed by using a free QSL design service.  See our Links Page for links to one or more such services.  The card images created by these services generally won't contain all the information called for below, but you can write in any additional needed info.

The QSL cards you send need to have the following information included on them (whenever applicable) if they are to be useful toward all of the awards we offer.  Be sure to check the variations at the bottom.

  1. Your call sign.
  2. Your location, particularly state and city.
  3. Indicate if you were Mobile or Portable and where.  Where can include which state, which National Park, and any other location info that may be important for someone else's award purposes.
  4. The UTC date of the contact.
  5. The UTC time of the contact.
  6. The frequency of the net on which the contact was made.  The band is acceptable, but the frequency is preferred.  Also indicating something like "75M SSB Early Net" or "75M SSB EN" (etc) is helpful to our Area Awards Managers, but not absolutely necessary.
  7. The mode of the contact; i.e., SSB, RTTY, PSK or CW.
  8. The call sign of the station you worked.
  9. The signal report sent to the station you worked.  Both the signal report you sent and the signal report you received is preferred... and is necessary if the contact was with a mobile station or any station that wasn't logging.
  10. Very important!  If the other station was mobile or portable, indicate her mobile/portable status and WHERE she was.  She needs this info on the card for her own awards purposes.
  11. Show on your QSL card any 3905CC awards you hold and their Certificate Numbers.
  12. If you are a club officer or a VIP, be sure to include the details of that on your card as well.
  13. QRP status of you or the other station is not absolutely required, but it's good to include it when applicable.
  14. The county you were in is helpful to those who might also want to use the card toward County Hunter awards.

Anything else you want to put on your card such as pictures, rig or gear info... is all gravy.  These are the things that make the card an expression of yourself.  They're not required, but many like to include them.

The main thing is to be sure to include all of the important and necessary information so your card can be used by the receiving stations toward all of our awards.

The first sample QSL card is shown below:

First sample QSL card image

Variations:

There are several "Club Stations" on the nets and some of them want a card for your contact, as well as a card for the contact with the Club Trustee.  Those who do not want a card for the contact with their club will check in as "No Card Needed" or similar.  The second sample QSL following is one example of a QSL for a contact made with a club station being operated by a member of the club other than the call sign trustee.  This card is an example of how all QSLs for contacts with club call signs should be filled out... although in this exact case there is no good reason for a non-trustee to ask for a QSL for a contact he made using someone else's club call sign because only contacts made by the trustee of a club call sign are eligible toward awards.  To prevent wasting envelopes at the bureau with extra unneeded cards, a reminder the contact was made can be put on the QSL to the non-trustee operator's personal call sign something like "Tnx also for QSO with club WA5XXX."

Second sample QSL card image

In this case the Trustee of the Club Call is WA4BCD (which is shown), but the actual operator of the club call was KC5DDD.  It is important to put all the appropriate calls on the QSL card in order to get a correct card back.  If you are QSLing someone operating a club call sign and fail to put the personal call sign of the operator on the card ("Operator: KC5DDD" in the example above) our QSL Bureaus will return the card to you.

Let's say that the operator of the club call was Mobile, then the card would look like the following third sample.

Third sample QSL card image

In this case the operator - again - was not the Trustee (WA5BCD) and on top of that, the actual operator (KC5DDD) was operating Mobile in Arkansas.  KC5DDD - being Mobile - was probably not logging so it is important to show that he was mobile and where as a reminder to him.

There may be other variations at times, but this is the essence of how a card should be completed.  Such other variations include working Combos, but the main thing to remember with a Combo is to send them each a separate QSL card with an indication on each that they were working as a combo.

 

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