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Sorting QSL cards
For the QSL manager of a local club: type in the recipient's callsign and see which slot the card belongs in, just as the DARC QSL bureau in Baunatal sorts its shelves. This is not a DXCC list: Bouvet, Svalbard and Jan Mayen are three entities but one slot, because everything goes via Norway. After the first visit it also works offline.
Pile
Every card you confirm with Enter ends up here. At the end you see how many cards belong in which slot, in shelf order. The pile stays until you clear it.
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Dispatch days of the QSL bureau
The bureau sends each district its cards once a month, in order from A to Z. Pick your district and see when the next shipment goes out. A few days later it reaches the local club's QSL manager.
Checking incoming cards: spotting misrouted ones
Twice a year the bureau sends you the accompanying list of all callsigns your local club receives cards for. Enter it here and you can see within a second whether each incoming card belongs to you. The list stays in your browser and goes nowhere.
Callsigns of your local club
One per line, or separated by commas or spaces. Feel free to include ex-callsigns and DE identifiers, they are on the accompanying list too.
Card from the shipment
Type in the recipient. Before using the misrouted-cards envelope, check whether it is an ex-callsign or a newly issued callsign of a member.
The rules in brief
Everything from the bureau's guidance sheet and prefix list, boiled down to what matters when sorting.
- German cardsGroup by the first two characters, DA to DR and Y2. Put cards to the same callsign one after another, that helps more at the coding desk than sorting by digits. SWL cards with a membership number as a block of their own.
- AbroadBy the main prefix of the list, not by DXCC. All prefixes of a country in one bundle, SWL cards included. The prefix must be readable on the top card or the band.
- USABy the digit in the callsign, whatever letter comes before it: W0 to W9. Only KH2, KH6, KL7, KP4, NP2 and KG4 have slots of their own.
- via managerForeign card with a manager: into the manager's slot, not the recipient's. German card with a German manager: via is ignored.
9A/DL2ZBRgoes to the home callsign, so DL. - Not a manager“via LoTW”, “via OQRS” or “CBA” are not managers. The card goes into the normal slot, the chance of a reply is low.
- No bureauRed in the list: there is no QSL bureau there, or it accepts nothing. Once a quarter the bureau looks for a manager or an address, otherwise the card comes back. Check QRZ.com first.
- Unknown to the DARCCards to callsigns not registered with the DARC come back with “SRI, this station does not use the QSL-Service of DARC”. Report new callsigns, club stations and training callsigns to the DARC office straight away.
- SendingOnce a month, stamped, to: DARC e. V., QSL-Büro, Lindenallee 4, 34225 Baunatal. No “D-” in front of the postcode, the post office's sorting machines can't read it.
- Misrouted cardsCards that don't belong to your local club go back in the envelope “Irrläufer aus DOK” (misrouted cards from DOK, the DARC district/club code), don't write anything on the card. Coded returns (“NIL”) go in there too, not with the new cards.
- The card itselfBetween 8.5 × 13.5 and 10.5 × 15 cm, at least 160 g/m². No laminate, no folded card, no laser print, 1 cm free at the bottom for the coding. Recipient top right, easy to read.
- Reminder cardsAfter one to two years at the earliest, only for QSOs from the last five years, and never a third one. Check first whether the callsign has changed.
Bureau stamps
- CALLSIGN UNKNOWNNot issued by the BNetzA. Usually a listening or writing error: I and J, M and N, U and V, in CW 5A instead of HA.
- SRI, this station does not use the QSL-Service of DARCIssued, but not registered with the DARC or not a member. An entry in a callbook changes nothing.
- NOT ManagerThe via callsign is not the manager of this station.
- SILENT KEYThe recipient has died.
- Call wrongThe prefix is currently not issued.