GlobalQSL - The Revolutionary technology of QSL card exchange!

It looks like Azar 4X6MI has a winner. A few months ago we gave you a preview of how the business of sending real QSL cards was being revolutionized. Well now it has become reality.

To get started, one logs into www.globalqsl.com. If you decide to register (a registered member can see his incoming cards from GlobalQsl even before he buys cards) you download the QSL card editor. I can say that a lot of work has gone into this, and after having been frustrated by the earlier beta version (one of the joys of being a beta tester!), the present version is a pure joy to use.

You simply design your own QSL card as YOU want it to be In my case I uploaded a photo I took of my antenna tower sporting the national flag and superimposed my call letters in white. On the flip side, I uploaded a self-portrait image, printed in my personal information along with my Holyland and Maidenhead Locator squares. You have a zillion fonts to choose from. A space is left blank where the QSO information will be added. You can also choose all kinds of symbols, flags and insignia to add. The sky is the limit.

Now, the beauty of this is that at any time you can change your QSL design, as the cards are printed only when they are needed to be sent.

You also upload designs for other callsigns you may happen to hold.

This is the time to kindle those latent artistic talents you have.

When the time comes to start "filling out" QSL cards, you have two options, manual and uploading of an electronic ADIF log. Your reporter is the old-time paper log type, so I logged into the Global QSL site, and started the manual process. It took a while to get the hang of it, yet after a few score entries, I found that I can now enter the information just as easily (and much more legibly!) and fast as I can write 'em out by hand.

This should really shine with you electronic log whiz-kids, where you don't have to type in anything, just transfer your log entries. No matter what method you use, you review your entries to make sure that they're correct, authorize the affair, and there's nothing left to do. The good folks at Global QSL will send out your cards to the QSL bureaus,

You can select one of three options how to get your incoming cards, and for reasonable added fee you can get it direct to your private address.

How do the cards look? I personally haven't seen how my design came out in the real world yet. (And I'm rather full of anticipation, as I've sent myself a card via the bureau to find out!) I have seen other cards that have come from the shop of Azar 4X6MI, and I can say that they are truly first class - thick high-gloss stock with excellent full-color on both sides. I had suggested that he make a cheaper model available on thinner stock and in black and white only, yet at this time Azar wants to go only with the high-class product, so that's what you get!

There are all kinds of neat features built in and to be discovered, one is that if you have multiple QSOs with a station, say in a contest and on different bands, the system will automatically put up to five entries together on one QSL, so you'll be charged for one card, even though you're confirming five contacts. It sorts the cards by callsigns, and you can keep track of them from your desktop (also incoming cards from Global QSL). As well, you can manage up to ten secondary callsigns with different QSL designs.

The Global QSL service was just released a week before writing this (beta testing and fine-tuning has been going on since the summer). I was told that already over a hundred people from around the world have signed up, and it looks, if we can say so this early in the game, that the venture is headed for success.

I wish Azar and his team Godspeed with the project. It will be indeed interesting to see all the creative designs hams will be turning out. This should make QSLing a lot of fun.

Ron Gang, 4X1MK

http://www.globalqsl.com/

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