Re: [IRCA] QSL Archival

[Chernos Saul <sauldx@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wayne describes a sensible approach for QSL collections - digitizing them. That will preserve some sense of them in their entirety.

A few thoughts:

Keep in mind the sentimental value of QSLs, to us, versus their subjective historic value. Largely, they're somewhere between travel photographs and a stamp collection. There's a little more value, financially and collector-wise than the photos, but they're nowhere near the collectibility, mass interest-wise, of stamps. Probably because their financial value is almost nothing.

Digitizing makes it possible to store an enormous volume of them, taking little space. They can always be updated to meet successive digital formats as time moves along so long as someone overseeing their keep does that. That way they're preserved digitally for as long as someone cares to do this.

I think a very select few will have some true lasting value from a museum standpoint. An interesting museum display or show could be pieced together around various relics from radio, and a small piece would be a few key QSLs. Keep in mind a lot of what museums hold isn't on permanent display. Most holdings are archived and in storage. So it's a matter of determining what in a particular collection might have some kind of historic value and what might interest a particular museum. Think along the lines of famous early pirates such as Caroline, or clandestines such as Argentine Annie, or the earliest years of radio pioneers such as CFCF and KDKA etc. And consider the different kinds of museums out there - county museums, national museums, radio or communications museums, radio hobby museums like the one in Bloomfield NY, university collections, and so on. There might be a home for DX artefacts in all of these, to some degree.

Keep in mind, too, that over-the-air radio will soon be a wholly historic phenomenon, once some form of online takes over. So there could be some growing historic merit there. Why wait until the medium is gone, and stuff is harder to come by, to put in place permanent memorials and collections.

Ultimately our various QSLs would likely end up scattered among multiple museums and such. That may be better than centralizing them in one place because it stands to reason more people would get to see them.

Think of a museum display or show as telling a story. And consider that QSLs don't tell the full story of our hobby, just as DXing doesn't tell the whole story of radio, or radio of broadcasting, or broadcasting of mass communications or media.

At this point, perhaps we should keep whatever QSLs we have, and at the very least will them to some interested DXer colleague if family members are unlikely to want them. Don't saddle your spouse, children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews with stuff they may or may not want. I wouldn't want everything my grandparents owned. In fact, I'm quite happy with memories, and perhaps an object or two - but it means more to me when that object reflects some aspect of the relationship that was cherished. If your spouse was a DX widow many evenings, your QSLs may very well end up in the fireplace. have that discussion up front with them - let them know how you feel and what you want done. Put it in writing or even in your living will or will (wills sometimes get read after some housecleaning has been done).

I'm going to speak with a radio exec I know who is passionate about the medium, to see what he thinks.

Saul Chernos

 amradiolog@xxxxxxxxxxx
> To: am@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 16:48:59 -0600
> Subject: Re: [NRC-AM] QSL Archival
> 
> Hi all
> 
> The National Radio Club has begun scanning verifications and, after they
> have been scanned, placing them for public view at nrcdxas.org. We are
> currently organizing the collection of Kermit Geary.  Other collections have
> arrived.  After they are scanned they then go on to the people at the
> Committee and hence to UofM. These have mostly come to me and I have been
> able to get a few helpers with the project.  My main scanning task now is to
> get the remainder of DX News scanned and up at e-DXN.com.   Those interested
> in this either to have them archived or to assist in scanning to pdf are
> encouraged to contact me off the list...
> 
> Remember if you reply to this is goes on the list, so please make sure the
> email is directed to
> 
> amradiolog@xxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> 73
> 
> Wayne
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: am-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:am-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> Ben Dangerfield
> Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2014 14:57
> To: AM DX
> Subject: [NRC-AM] QSL Archival
> 
> Bob Foxworth has raised the subject of sending our QS L cards and lletters
> somewhere for preservation.  I would rather keep them in our family
> archives.  I have 2 sons, 2 great-grandsons, a daughter, and especially a
> wife who enjoys preserving and writing about our family history and family
> "treasures".  Someday someone might be interested'
> They have been in the past.
> 
> And Bob, I too have a nice letter verie form Tarawa-844 and a verie from
> Radio Swan-1160.  Radio Swan was on an island off the Central Ameican coast
> and broadcast to Cuba in the 1960s. I also have a detailed verie letter fom
> Radio Caroline North, from their chief engineer.  They transmitted from a
> ship off the coast of the isle of  Man.
> 
> Ben Dangerfield,  Wallinford, a. 

 		 	   		  
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