A couple of days ago, a reader, who is a “sorter” for the ARRL Incoming QSL Bureau, emailed me about the ARRL’s decision to end funding for the bureaus at the end of this year. In an email dated Friday, June 21, 2024, Bart Jahnke, W9JJ, Radiosport and Regulatory Information Manager, informed the Incoming QSL Bureau managers that the ARRL Board of Directors had decided that the bureaus would have to recoup “their full expenses from shared charges to the participants themselves.”

According to the June 2024 Standard Operating Guidelines for Incoming QSL bureaus, the funding for many expenses, including PO box rental and other postal expenses, office supplies, printing, and mileage, was to have ended on July 31, 20204, but that date has been pushed back to the end of the year.

My reader was a little upset about this because this decision was made with little or no input from the bureau managers, and they were quite caught off guard by this decision. Not only that, the ARRL is putting the entire burden of how to recoup expenses on the bureau managers. In essence, this makes the bureau managers and sorters, not the ARRL itself, the bad guys in this scenario. I told him that this really didn’t surprise me as this kind of thing seems to be standard operating procedure for the ARRL.

My reader was also a little upset that the ARRL will continue to tout the QSL Bureau as a member benefit, when in reality, it’s the members and volunteers that will be footing the bill. When I asked if he had any idea how much this was actually costing the ARRL every year, he didn’t really know.

Honestly, I’m not sure how big a deal this really is. With the advent of Logbook of the World, paper QSLs are slowly becoming a thing of the past, in much the same way that AM phone has become a historic curiosity. Even so, I do sympathize with the volunteers who were not asked for any input and are now expected to squeeze more money out of their users. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the QSL Bureau volunteers quit over this slight from ARRL HQ.

Nor would I be surprised if the ARRL lost some members over the increase in fees. There are always hams out there just looking for an excuse to quit the League. As I’ve said in the past, the ARRL needs to get serious about how to increase membership, not lose membership.

Anyway, what do you think? Are you a QSL bureau user? If so, how do you feel about paying more for the service?  If you’re not a QSL Bureau user, do you think I’m making a big deal about nothing?