Interesting SEO Notes

My wife Kass & I run a small business called Reconstructing History. We sell shoes, patterns, notions, books, and clothing - all stuff for historical reenactors and historical clothing enthusiasts.

The internet is crucial to our business's success.

We're losing our search-engine placement for some reason. This is ruinous. Something is broken; we're figuring out what it is. One quick fix is to get everyone we know to post five links to pages on our website. The links can be random; you can link to products (best bet), articles, etc. Links are best served surrounded by text. So if you go to your LJ and post something like, "These are my favorite five things from Reconstructing History" and add links, that'll work.

Please put five links in some web content somewhere you control. LJ or other blog, your HTML website, Twitter, discussion forums, whatever. Don't violate terms of use, of course; be intelligent.

Let's go viral!

Contesting

Okay, people, it's official: I'm a contester.

I used to be a casual operator. If I heard a DX station, I'd try to work him; if I didn't after three or four shouts, that was okay. If there was a contest going on, I'd work a few stations before switching the rig off.

Frankly, I think I was afraid. Afraid of my piddly little station not standing a ghost of a chance with K3LR and W3LPL - hell, afraid of not being able to compete with the guy a few miles away with a tower and tribander. Field Day was always fun - and please don't flame me for calling it a contest; it is what it is - but I was always using someone else's nice equipment with pretty good antennas. It wasn't my station, which couldn't possibly be competitive, ever.

Then I stumbled across the North American QSO Party last year. 150-some QSOs later, I realized that my little station might actually allow me to have fun. So I started playing in contests even more. When I participated in last year's Pennsylvania QSO Party and made 17,000 points operating at 3/4 throttle for only half the available operating time, I really started thinking about my hangups.

See, I was worried about my station. Consisting as it does of twenty-year-old radio technology, it hasn't a prayer of being competitive against people with new rigs with all the digital bells and whistles. No DSP, no automatic notch, no digital bandpass filtering (for that matter, no filtering at all!) here at AB3EI. No tower, no yagi - no, not even a tribander - just a couple of wires strung up not that high at all, actually. Oh, and no amplifier.

There is a certain thrill to contacting as many stations as possible during a given time-frame; it's especially exciting when you find a rare station, the whole world is calling him, and you actually snag the contact with a station like mine. There's also a wonderful sense of accomplishment when you use your little grey cells to strategize your operation based on your station, skills, and endurance - and you meet your goal(s).

For me, it's good because even at my young age my body is incapable of sustained competitive physical sport (except maybe cricket or golf; I can't stand golf, and I haven't time for cricket). Yet I have a very wide competitive streak which needs to be satisfied. Moreover, I have little enough operating time that I need to carefully schedule my on-air activity. Planning for contest weekends allows me to fairly schedule my on-air time amongst the other family activities.

So for me it's always a win. ;)

Every contester operates for different reasons. Maybe your goal is to win. Maybe you want to beat your pal across town. Maybe you want to optimize your operating skills. Maybe you want to work that last country for an award. Whatever the reason, good for you, and bonne chance!

I'll see you on the air!

QSL - The Final Courtesy

Speaking of QSLs, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the art of QSLing - sending and receiving QSL cards.

Like most amateurs, I've sent and received a lot of QSLs over the years. In days of radio yore, the QSL card was the only confirmation that contact was made on the air. The cards were used to prove the contacts for awards. For most amateurs and shortwave listeners (SWLs), though, QSLing was and is all about collecting little pieces of individual art from around the globe.

These days, there are alternatives to paper QSLing, like ARRL's Logbook of the World (LotW) and eQSL. I find them unsatisfying, personally, because I find a great deal of pleasure collecting the cards. I will therefore with clear conscience ignore them. The following will deal primarily with DX (long-distance) QSLing, for that is where things are very interesting from an awards and collecting standpoint.

Avoid fancy, dual-sided cards. Make sure your callsign and the QSO data appear on one side of the card and make it easy to read. Use a bog-standard font and color for your information. Using a fancy font in a wierd color makes it difficult for the DX operator or QSL manager to read your info, so make it plain as day. Most active DX ops and QSL managers have to wade through hundreds if not thousands of cards. If your card has two sides, the answerer will have to flip it. That and cursive fonts and pastel colors makes it more difficult, which increases the chances your card either gets binned or (at best) gets put into the "when I get around to it" (WIGATI) pile.

When filling out your cards, use an indelible black ink. For best results, make a sample copy and take it into the shower with you.

No, I am not kidding. Remember the US Postal Service motto? Let me paraphrase it: "We'll deliver your mail through all sorts of crappy weather, including gale-force, tropical-storm rain. While we're at it, we'll maybe drop in into a storm drain and step on it a few times." Now apply that to third-world postal "services." Get the picture? Let me make it more clear - you're waiting on that last card from East Jibip for DXCC, and it gets rained on when the banana fronds are blown off the post-office hut. The ink runs. Now Q13FZ can't reference his logs, because your QSO info is illegible.

The same holds for the ink with which your cards are printed. Most commercially-printed cards will survive the Shower Test. Lots of amateurs, your humble correspondent included, print their own, using a home or commercial inkjet or laser printer. Make certain the ink/toner is weatherproof, not weatherresistant.

Don't let the above get you down if you want a cool, pretty card! By all means, invest in some and send them to casual contacts who earn your favor. But it's a silly idea to send an expensive, photo-quality, two-sided card to someone who probably won't even look at it for more than the second it takes to cross-reference the QSO data with his log. Besides, you can spiff up a card like I'm describing, making it your own, without going overboard.

Now we've got the mechanics of the card itself established, let's make sure the QSO info is correct.

Print the information legibly. Fill out a dummy card and take it to the next club meeting. Pass it around to everyone, including the nearly-blind guy at the back. If anyone has a problem reading the information you're written, you have some options - practice your penmanship, use a typewriter or print a label (with permanent ink!).

Make sure the date, time and frequency are correct. Most logging programs will automatically update the UTC date when it changes at your location, provided you've set up the logging program correctly. If you're using paper logs, make sure you remember to update the date when the UTC clock flips from 2359 to 0000, or your card will get bounced as "not in log." Use a recognizable format for dating the QSO. 11.10.07 can be either 10th November or 11th October, so avoid it. In the past, it was de rigeur to use a Roman numeral for the month - 11 X 2007 - and that's the way I still do it. Saves writing "OCT" on the card, and there's no confusion as to what the abbreviation means - remember, odds are your card is going to a foreign country where English isn't the everyday language, and they've probably got different words for the months. Simply put, don't make the DX op or QSL manager guess, or you might end up in the "WIGATI" pile.

If you make an error, don't even try to make corrections. Bin the card and begin again. It's unethical to ask for an error-free card if the one you're providing is valueless - and corrected cards are valueless for awards. You never know; you might be Q13FZ's last county for a County-Hunter award. VP2ML advises, "Ask yourself if you would submit the card for your own DXCC; if it isn't good enough for you, it should be discarded."

Okay, now we've got a legible, durable card ready to send. How do we get it there, and how do we best get a response?

The first question to ask now is "Where do I send it?" As recently as ten years ago, this step could be an incredible chore. With the advent of the World Wide Web, it's at the other end of your modem. http://www.qrz.com has lots of DX callsign info, including managers. There are gaps, however. Google "dx qsl route" and you'll come up with lots of search ideas; be diligent, and you'll find the best route. If you're reading this on the Internet, you can do this. If you're reading this in a print newsletter because you don't have a computer, get one, you Luddite. You're supposed to be a communications expert, fer Pete's sake, and the Internet is the 21st century's dominant communications medium. Go get a Macintosh or hit your local public library.

Once you have an address, you have three avenues of delivery available to you: direct, manager or Bureau.

Sending and receiving cards via the Bureau is easy. QSL Bureaux are usually run by the national amateur radio associations of each country (in the USA, ARRL). They send and receive bulk mailings of QSL cards between them, sort them when they arrive, and send them on to individual amateurs. Pros: it's easy and cheap. Cons: it's slooooow, and some countries don't have a Bureau. See http://www.arrl.org/qsl/qslin.html for US information.

Managers are marginally more complicated. Instead of sending the card in a package to a QSL Bureau, you send it, with SASE, through USPS to a domestic QSL manager. Just like sending a domestic QSL direct. (Yes, I know there are overseas managers; give me a moment, will ya?)

Direct is consdierably more complicated, as there are quite a few things to be considered.

First, how to package. You need two envelopes, one outer and one for return, both addressed correctly. It is best to get the clearly marked "Airmail" envelopes with the colored borders. You can get away with marking the envelopes "Via Air" and/or "Par Avion" - it's worked for me - but better to use the universally-recognized airmail packaging. Make sure the return envelope "nests" neatly inside the outer; folding is to be avoided, as it leaves a tell-tale bulge. Oh, and don't be a bonehead like I was once - buy return envelopes that actually fit a QSL card. Yeah; really happened. If you must fold your SASE, put the fold at the bottom of the outer envelope, so as to avoid having it sliced in half when the outer envelope is opened.

Airmail supplies are available from various sources. I've used K3FN and can attest to both his service and the quality of his products - visit http://users.net1plus.com/ryoung/index.htm and have a look round. If you use IRCs, make sure they're A. the new kind, not the outdated ones; and B. properly stamped. IRCs should be stamped on the left side only. If both sides are stamped, it's cancelled and therefore worthless. There is a centre box, which may be stamped, but only to indicate the price of the IRC; if it gets a postmark stamp, explain the error to the postal employee and refuse to take it. Not only must it be stamped in the proper place, but the date of issue must be legibly shown. If the stamp is smudged, ask for another.

Write your mailing address in the center of the return envelope. Note: Never, ever put any callsigns anywhere on the outside of either envelope! This is the quickest way to get your envelope opened and searched for currency by unscrupulous postal workers; the remnants will be tossed into the nearest rubbish bin. If you can manage it, use a business address for your address on both envelopes. This discourages curiosity in the dishonest. Of course, you'll have to arrange with someone to recognize that any airmail coming from East Jibip is supposed to go to you.

Now, some QSL managers are in foreign countries, too. Your hope is that the manager is in a country with a better postal system than East Jibip. Let's say Q13FZ has a QSL manager in the capable person of DF4XX - good, he's in Germany. Overseas, yeah, but in the land of efficiency and management, where alles is normally in Ordnung. If Q13FZ is managed by someone in Lesotho, it might be time to worry. I haven't got a solution for that, other than what you've already read.

Finally, be patient. Regardless of whether you're going direct, buro or manager, recognize that mail is a funny thing is some foreign lands. Your direct card might take weeks to arrive. The DX op is a hobbyist, too, and might take a couple days/weeks to fill out the response. After being posted, the response might take a few weeks to filter through his postal system. Then it sits on a boat for several weeks, steaming toward our shores. Only then does it get launched into our wonderful US Postal Service (sarcasm /off). So even direct might take three to six months.

Add in variables like QSL Bureaux - which are staffed by hobbyist volunteers, taking away from their on-air time to sort your cheap-ass QSL, tightwad - and you can tack on at least six months. Same thing with managers, really: the manager might not get logs but once or twice a year, via the sloooooow postal service of some third-world country. Same thing with DXpeditions, too: I can't think of a single big-time DXpedition in the last three years that even made an attempt to print cards until months after they all got home and had a shower.

So relax, have a beer, and work more DX. It's a cycle. The more DX you work, the more QSLs you'll send, the more rare the stations you send cards to, and the longer you wait. Get over it! =)


Permission to reprint this article in your club's newsletter is hereby given, provided proper credit is given. If it's a paper newsletter, snail mail me a copy so I can bask in my own glory - look me up on QRZ.com!