Annual QSL Sort
Saturday February 23^rd,
Falmouth Town Hall meeting room (Meeting Program)

Another year, and it's time for another annual QSL Sorting party. The annual sort is our big one and Jan, K5MA will be there armed with stacks of W1 incoming bureau cards to be sorted by recipient's call sign. His novel shopping bag sorting system helps make short work of it and it's a chance to find out what QSL'ing is all about. The QSL card has been around almost as long as ham radio itself. It's a time honored tradition and it's one of the ways you can earn credits towards any of the many operating awards available. With today's postage costs both the Incoming and Outgoing QSL bureaus have become vital tools for hams wishing to continue this time honored practice because they reduce the cost of QSL'ing considerably. The ARRL has come up with an electronic Internet based method of sending and receiving QSL's that is foolproof (can't be spoofed), many hams will continue the paper practice simply because of the novelty of collecting the cards. Many of the cards are pure works of art and a wall full of them makes a striking addition to any ham's shack.

In past years, thanks to some 25 to 30 members who turn out for the annual 1st District QSL incoming bureau sort, we make relatively short work of  the job. Every year we perform this volunteer activity for the Bureau and it is a deed that is greatly appreciated by hams all over the New England Division. If your call has a 1 in it, regardless of where you live, and your DX card came through the bureau it may have passed through our hands. That's what the sort is all about and like the QSL Incoming Bureaus, it's totally handled by volunteers; hams helping hams. If you're looking for an excuse to have a good old fashioned extended eyeball QSO with fellow members, this is it.

These are an assortment of pictures of busy FARA members going about the task of sorting tens of thousands of cards in past years.

A big sort is easier to handle with lots of people doing sub sorts. As a first level sorting operation we just need to separate the cards into 26 letter groups, e.g. 1A, 1B, 1C, etc., and collect them in bins (bags in our case). A 27th bag holds cards that are not in the 1st call area.

The final goal of all this business, the 27 buckets.