Friday, June 12, 2020

Don't Send Those Buro Cards Just Yet


If you still enjoy exchanging paper QSL cards with DX stations, you should know that getting those
cards from here to there may be a problem for the foreseeable future. The US Postal Service says it has temporarily stopped accepting international mail for nearly 100 countries around the world due to impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. As of June 10, mail service to 21 countries had been suspended due to "foreign postal operator service suspension" and another 75 countries were on the "do not mail" list due to "unavailability of transportation." The regularly updated list of specific countries, along with procedures for requesting a refund or remailing in the future is at <http://tinyurl.com/sxvuqwb>.


In a related story, the ARRL says it was experiencing 1-3 week delays in shipping member orders as of mid-May, due to restrictions on how many people at a time could be present in their warehouse and excessive demands on shipping carriers. 

Here at CQ, we have experienced very slow and sporadic mail delivery. On the bright side, our offices, which have been closed since mid-March under state stay-at-home orders, were scheduled to reopen on June 15.