F6IRF: And the QSL's ?

With over 30,000 QSO's per year, QSL'ing becomes a big problem. Sending 1QSL /QSO would be both expensive and useless (a majority of contest QSO's are done with the same stations... who furthermore are not QSL's hunters...). As it is impossible to guess who is interested by your card, the best remains to wait for the cards to come, and to try to answer them in an efficient way...





Step1: the received bureau cards are sorted by bureau.
Step2: Each received card is captured in BV7 software. Each small window corresponds to a different callsign I used in the pass. Entering the callsign, I can immediately see which band/mode for which of my call still needs to be confirmed.





Step3: when all the cards for a given bureau, have been queud, the calls are printed. The software takes care of the alphabetical order sorting. I do not use anymore labels, but rather directly print on the cards (it saves the annoying sticker gluing step!)





step4: each card printed is verified and signed


Here are the main bureau customers: from left to right K, SP, I, JA and DL... To be noted, the K stations are by far the most present in my logs... ahh if the rest of the world could also use LOTW!



Step5: Finaly the cards are packed and sent to the REF !
This represents only 4 monthes, the same volume is sent 3 times/year





Following are the statistics provided by BV7 (started to use it in 2004)
F6IRF: QSOs printed: 7855
FG/F6IRF: QSOs printed: 1961
F6IRF/P: QSOs printed: 195
IS0/F6IRF: QSOs printed: 105
UT/F6IRF/P: QSOs printed: 25
So from the nearly 10,000 QSO's have been confirmed via the bureau since 2004... (by the way, not all bureaux are slow ! UT/F6IRF/P operation is only 5 monthes old !)

In short: QSL'ing represents time money and energy that I would prefer to use on the air, on station improvments and on travelling; so please:
- Refrain sending 1 card per QSO (only new band/mode) This may be easier for you, but it is a nightmare for me ! (once again I am not interested by cards, they all endup to the trash !).
- Be friendly with the environment and the trees: try to use LOTW or E-QSL...

F6IRF - 1 year of contesting

Above the antennas used for the SPDX-TTY contest, done from west-France (IN87)

2005 has been a very "active year" with over 29000 QSO's done in 37 contests. Below are the details by reverse chronological order, with a link to the related 3830 post (except for casual participations). In red the mode and the raw number of QSO's.
[3830] OK RTTY F6IRF SOAB HP TY 706
[3830] CQWW CW CN2WW(F6IRF) SOSB/20 LP CW 2500
LZDX CW CONTEST CN2WW(F6IRF) SOAB LP CW 350
[3830] WAE RTTY F6IRF Single Op HP TY 1278
[3830] UR DX F6IRF SOAB RTTY HP TY 675
3830] JARTS F6IRF Single Op HP TY 1611
[3830] Makrothen RTTY F6IRF SO/Single Xcvr HP TY 777
CQWW SSB F6IRF/P SOAB LP SSB 100
[3830] CQ WW RTTY F6IRF SOAB(A) HP TY 1512
[3830] SAC CW F6IRF SOAB LP CW 315
[3830] Rus RTTY F6IRF SOAB HP TY 500
[3830] SCC RTTY F6IRF SOAB(A) HP TY 952
[3830] SARTG F6IRF SOAB HP TY 802
[3830] WAE CW F6IRF Single Op HP CW 310
EM5F -->IOTA DXPN MS MIX 24H LP MIX 2230
[3830] DL-DX RTTY F6IRF SOAB-24 HP TY 784
[3830] UR DX DIGI F6IRF SOAB HP TY 189
[3830] ANARTS F6IRF SOST HP TY 1090
[3830] WPX CW TM6A(F6IRF) SO(A)AB LP CW 1827
[3830] Volta RTTY F6IRF SOAB HP TY 556
[3830] ARI F6IRF SO RTTY HP TY 466
[3830] SPDX RTTY F6IRF/P SOAB LP TY 664
[3830] JIDX CW F6IRF SOAB HP CW 252
[3830] EA RTTY F6IRF SOAB HP TY 702
[3830] BARTG F6IRF SO Expert HP TY 923
[3830] Ukraine RTTY F6IRF SOSB/20 HP TY 84
ARRLDX SSB F6IRF SOAB HP SSB 171
[3830] UBA CW F6IRF SOAB HP CW 800
REF SSB F6IRF SOAB HP SSB 200
[3830] ARRLDX CW F6IRF SOAB(A) HP CW 1000
[3830] RTTY WPX F6IRF SOAB LP TY 1290
[3830] XE RTTY F6IRF SO2R HP TY 743
[3830] REF CW F6IRF SOAB LP CW 572
[3830] UKDX RTTY F6IRF Single Op HP TY 575
[3830] BARTG Sprint F6IRF SO Expert HP TY 660
[3830] RTTY Roundup F6IRF Single Op HP TY 849
SARTG HNY F6IRF SOAB HP TY 110

As shown by this graph, during 2005, I have focused on RTTY contesting, not missing any of the organized contest in this mode... (this chart includes EM5F multi-op expedition for the IOTA contest, thus the high number of SSB qso's in July !)

Results: Of course only a few results have been published, but among the good surprises is the 4th World and first EU-place in the Makrothen TTY contest (together with a 1st world place on the 80m band). More to follow...