Almost all Novice Class hams used these cards, and that was another fun thing-- eagerly waiting to see what the cards would look like!
And, as the three cards on this page illustrate, QSL cards confirmed the special brotherhood among hams in different countries-- even in the "enemy" countries.
Even though the U.S. Government forbids travel to Cuba, radio waves ignore political hang-ups. And history devotees should appreciate the QSL cards from countries which no longer exist. The card at left confirmed my RTTY (teletype) contact with a ham in Perm, U.S.S.R.
I must confess that I didn't get to talk to a cosmonaut aboard the MIR Space Station, but the card below did confirm my 2-meter PACKET contact during one of their passes over the U.S.
The U2MIR operator on board was Musa Manarov, and the then Soviet transmitter was running only 2.5 watts!
QSL cards do not seem to have caught on with newer hams who use the VHF and UHF repeaters across the country, and so far I have received only one from an APRS station.
When I received my first license I had not been out of high school very long. For my "Senior Theme" I had chosen Father Flanagan of Boys Town as my subject, having been so impressed by his work after watching the MGM movie "Boys Town". I "borrowed" one of the tributes someone wrote for him after his death. Notice that this was so long ago-- telephone numbers still used words!
For my second QSL card, I featured a picture (borrowed from MAD Magazine) which I used in a daily column I wrote for the county newspaper during my last year at Littlefield High School. The column was called "Mad Raven's Twilight Zone"-- pretty silly, huh! Every teenager has his own way of making a statement, and I guess that was mine.
My third card was an attempt to make my station a "phone patch" station, since I had toll-free access to Cannon Air Force Base and several communities. In reality I didn't run that many patches, but I do remember doing one from a ship in the Pacific to someone trying to arrange bail for a jailed family member!
And for my fourth card, I used a cartoon I had seen in a magazine which struck me as being hilarious-- a couple of FCC inspectors monitoring a "pirate" broadcaster in their car! Having done a little "broadcasting" with some friends during my high school years with a "10-in-1 Kit" transmitter, I more or less identified with that cartoon. We even made up call letters for our station-- "YBFM"-- which stood for our last names: Yohner, Bitner, Fulton, Maurer!