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Long Delayed QSLs

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This was originally a posting of mine to the HCDX mailing list on 25 April 2000. One of the many threads of this discussion has been sending follow-ups to very old reports. I did a lot of this in the late 1980s and early 1990s, QSLing stations five, ten, and even 20 years after I heard. One two occasions, long inactive stations reactivated their SW frequencies within a year of receiving (and QSLing) my ten year old report. One was Ondas Musicales in the Dominican Republic and I know there was one more, but I'd have to look through the QSLs to remember who. I certainly don't know that my reports caused these stations to reactivate, but who knows? Interesting coincidence, at the least. And, we can certainly use anything that brings back old stations.

Another similar situation happened in 1988. Early in 1988 while looking through my pennants I noticed my 1978 15th anniversary pennant from Radio Guatapuri, Colombia 4815 kHz. They had celebrated 15 years in August 1978 (I'm not going to look up the exact date), so obviously would have 25 years on that same date later in 1988. I wrote them a nice letter suggesting they reactivate their SW frequency for their 25th anniversary and suggested that they write me before hand of their plans so I could publicize it. I never heard anything from them and forgot about it. However, that August evening I received a phone call from Dave Valko telling me that Radio Guatapuri had reactivated with some sort of live celebration going on. I tuned in and there they were - celebrating 25 years on the air. They hadn't been on SW for around 5 or 6 years at that time and haven't, to my knowledge, been back since.

Anyway, whether you're asking for an overdue QSL or just reminding a a long inactive station that they used to have an international audience, you never know - you might just cause a station to reactivate.

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This website is maintained by Don Moore,
Association of North American Radio Clubs
DXer of the Year for 1995
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