Welcome to my corner of the world! Glad you dropped by. Browse around and discover a collection of QSL cards from international broadcasters, old and new. Read an article or two about radios and the hobby of radio listening. Happy DXing!!!
Shown is a picture of Mount Mabolasi. The mountain is located within the Central Mountain Range of Taiwan with a maximum peak height of 3,785 metres (12,418 ft). It is the fourth highest mountain in the island republic.
Reception report was emailed on the following day. QSL card arrived on 6 October 2025.
RX: Alinco DX-R8T EXT ANT: 1/4 wave QTH: Malaysia
Shown is a picture of Mount Dabajian. lt is located in the northern section of the Shei-Pa National Park in Hsinchu County, Taiwan. It is surrounded by numerous other peaks, the most predominant including Mount Nanhu, Mount Yize, Central Range Point, Mt. Pintian, and Mt. Mutule. The mountain stands at a height of 3,492 m (11,457 ft).
Reception report was emailed on the following day. QSL card arrived on 6 October 2025.
RX:Degen DE-1102 EXT ANT: 3 meter random wire QTH: Malaysia
Reception report was emailed on the same day. An eQSL without my name and details was received on 4 October 2025.
RMT RX: SDR via Twente University EXT ANT: mini whip QTH: monitored remotely from Malaysia
The postcard featured an illustration of presumabl Stuttgart, with radio equipment and antennas.
The text "Hams always come back" and "Der alte Ham-Spirit lebt noch!" (The old Ham-Spirit still lives!) reflected the resilience and passion of German amateur radio enthusiasts after World War II.
The locked cage with vacuum tubes and the question "Wer hat den Schlüssel?" (Who has the key?) likely alluded to the challenges and restrictions faced by German amateur radio operators in the immediate post-war period.
The reverse side of the card is identified as a "Tagungs-Festpostkarte," which translates to "Conference-Festival Postcard," suggesting it was issued for this specific amateur radio gathering.
The card was "Herausgegeben vom Veranstalter" (issued by the organizer) WBRC, located at Stuttgart, Neue Weinsteige 5.
Affixed to the postcard is a 24 Pfennig stamp depicting Heinrich von Stephan, a key figure in German postal history.
The circular postmark indicates "Stuttgart", 7-8.6.1947. It also mentions "deutscher Kurzweil Amateure Württ-Bad. Radia-P," suggesting this particular amateur radio event was held in the Württemberg-Baden region.
Background
In July 1947, this shortwave conference was held in Stuttgart, attended by around 500 radio amateurs from all over Germany, giving amateur radio a significant boost there.
Clubs were gradually authorised in other parts of Germany as well. First, the Hessian Radio Club (HRC), modeled on the Stuttgart model (even American officials considered this a precedent), then the Bavarian Amateur Radio Club (BARC), and finally the German Amateur Radio Club/British Zone (DARC/BZ). The radio operators in the French Zone had to wait until 1949, those in the Saar region until 1951, and those in the Soviet Zone until 1952 (this is a reminder for GDR nostalgics).
An important culmination of this development was the founding of the DARC (without any additions) in the fall of 1950, into which the aforementioned clubs and their members were integrated over time.
Radio Taiwan International Calendar, October 2025
In September 1961, following the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) launched an anti-Western broadcast campaign called "Blitz auf Natosender" (Strike against NATO Broadcasters), which aimed to prevent its citizens from receiving Western radio and television signals. The DDR's official youth organisation, the FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jungend), encouraged people to remove or damage antennas pointing towards the West, where "mental border-crossers" were living. People who did not voluntarily give up Western television and radio were to have their antennas sawn off or turned by force "towards socialism and peace".
Reception report was emailed on the following day. This QSL card arrived in the mail on 14 August 2025.
RX: Alinco DX-R8T EXT ANT: 1/4 wave QTH: Malaysia
Reception report was emailed to Spectrum Management, the verifier for AIR, on the following day. QSL Card was received on 7 August 2025.
RX: Sangean ATS-909 EXT ANT: random 3 meter wire QTH: Central West Malaysia
This radio station, which operated on shortwave, could be received worldwide in the 1970s. When civil war broke out in Liberia in 1990, the station was burned and looted. For the next 13 years, ELWA Radio struggled to stay on the air through waves of civil strife, broadcasting from an old garage building. ELWA was threatened again when a fire gutted that building in 2011.
With faith and determination, the ELWA Radio staff set up two studios in the transmitter building and continued work, carrying their listeners through the difficult times of the Ebola epidemic in 2014 and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020.
The station currently operates primarily on FM with a 2kW transmitter; SW transmission at one point resumed with a 1kW, much less than its former power.
The card has a highlighted notation stating NHK World - Japan will cease issuing verification cards on 31 March 2025. This seems par for the course given the cost of postage worldwide and the dwindling (aging) listener audience.
It is disheartening for old listeners like me who first received a verification card from Radio Japan in 1968-1969. When I resumed this hobby in 2007, NHK World Radio Japan and many domestic Japanese MW stations were verified from Malaysia.
While this is their swan song for me, on a more conciliatory note their SW and MW broadcasts can still be heard. Hopefully this will not cease like so many great stations that have gradually disappeared in recent years.
Vatican Radio QSL Retrospective of Pope Francis.
Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 1936 – 2025) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2013 until his death in 2025.
The stamps featured:
41c - Inaugural announcer John Royle
65c - Radio Australia coverage
$1.10 - Jacko the laughing kookaburra
Radio Australia opened its broadcasts with the melody "Waltzing Matilda" and the song of the Kookaburra bird, hence the cachet and stamp design. Its programmes targeted the Pacific and Oceania, but we're just as popular throughout the English-speaking world.
Reception report was submitted on the following day. A QSL was received on 7 March 2025.
RX: Degen DE-1102 EXT ANT: 3 meter random wire QTH: Malaysia
