The QSL ticket still has its place in the radio amateur world. Even though electronic systems such as LoTW or eQSL are available today, the classic paper QSL card remains the preferred method of connection confirmation for many radio amateurs. However, her journey to a foreign station is not always easy. Ensuring international exchange requires logistics, sorting and, above all, postage costs.
It was the rising costs of postal services that forced the Slovak Association of Radio Amateurs (SZR) to look for a more efficient solution for sending QSL tickets abroad. Since September 2026, SZR has therefore established cooperation with the German amateur radio organization Deutscher Amateur-Radio-Club (DARC), which ensures the international distribution of QSL tickets for other national organizations as well.
You will read in the article
Why DARC?
Recently, Slovak Post has repeatedly increased the prices of postage abroad and at the same time limits the weight categories of shipments. For the QSL service, which regularly sends a large number of paper tickets, this represents an increasing financial and organizational burden.
Other national radio amateur organizations are dealing with a similar situation. The German DARC therefore offered its existing capacities for the processing and distribution of QSL shipments to foreign partners as well. Its QSL Bureau has a built-in infrastructure and experience in processing a large number of tickets. The model of cooperation with DARC is also used, for example, by the British organization RSGB, which entrusted the central processing of its QSL service to a German partner in 2026.
The SZR Presidium decided to join this system in order to reduce the costs of sending QSL tickets abroad. The main advantage is a more favorable price per kilogram of tickets sent and the possibility of their more frequent distribution. Thus, there is no need to wait for the creation of large shipments in order to make the shipment economically advantageous.
What is changing for SZR members?
In fact, almost nothing changes for the average SZR member. And that is one of the most important things about the whole solution. Radio amateurs will continue to send their outgoing QSL tickets to the current address:
Slovak Association of Radio Amateurs
P.O.Box 14
900 31 Stupava
QSL managers of SZR will receive the tickets, process them and prepare them for sending. After filling the necessary weight, the shipment will be sent to Germany, where it will be taken over by DARC and will ensure further distribution to the relevant countries and foreign QSL Bureaus.
Equally important, the cooperation does not change the operation of the incoming QSL service. Tickets from abroad intended for Slovak stations will continue to arrive at the SZR address. Domestic QSL managers then sort them and distribute them to the members of the union in the same way that radio amateurs were used to until now.
QSL service remains
Cooperation with DARC is a practical solution to a problem faced by other national radio amateur organizations. Instead of building its own expensive distribution infrastructure, SZR will use the capacities of the existing system.
For Slovak radio amateurs, it is important that the traditional QSL service continues without changing the method of sending and receiving tickets. Above all, the logistics of their trip abroad are changing. The result should be lower costs and more frequent QSL shipments.
The article provides more information about a similar model of cooperation The British RSGB outsourced the QSL service to the German DARC.