Courtesy Cards

Courtesy Cards

A Courtesy Card marks a connection made off the air, such as a hamfest, a club, a net or a channel. It carries no contact details, because no contact was worked.

You hold one Courtesy Card for the whole account, not one per callsign, and every member has one whether or not they hold a callsign at all. That is what the card is for: clubs, organizations and members without a license can send and receive Courtesy Cards exactly as licensed operators do.

A Courtesy Card is sent by hand and accepted by the person receiving it. That is the opposite of a QSL Card, which is exchanged automatically and only on a confirmed contact.

Your Courtesy Card is at Account, then My Cards, in the section below your QSL cards.

How To Design Your Courtesy Card

1. Go to Account, then My Cards.
2. Under Courtesy Card, press Edit Card.
3. Add a picture under Upload Image. Press the folder icon for a file from your computer, or Browse Images for the QSL Shack image library. The picture rules are the same as a QSL card's: JPG or PNG, landscape, about 11:7, at least 550 by 350 pixels, under 5MB.
4. Choose a Card color.
5. Write a Tagline. It draws in the band under the picture, up to 120 characters.
6. Fill in Text 1, Text 2 and Text 3. All three are free text and yours to write. Text 1 draws large on the left, Text 2 on the right beside it, and Text 3 small and in capitals underneath. Clear a line to leave it off the card entirely.
7. Press Save Card Design.

Until you save, you are looking at the default card QSL Shack made for you, and the note under it says so. Revert Changes puts back what you started with.

A Courtesy Card carries no license class and no grid square, and nothing on it is taken from the license register. Text 1 starts as your callsign or screen name only because that is a sensible default, and you may type anything in its place, including a club or company name.

How To Send A Courtesy Card

1. Open the profile of the member you want to send it to.
2. Press Send Card.
3. Write a note if you want to. It is optional, up to 500 characters, and it reaches them with the card.
4. Press Send Card in the window.

The card arrives on their Pending Requests list and appears on their board only if they accept it. Your note travels with the notification and is shown beside the card on their board. It is not printed on the card itself.

Three things will stop a send, and each says so plainly: you cannot send a card to yourself, you cannot send a member a card they already hold, and you cannot send a second request while one is still waiting for an answer.

How To Update A Card Somebody Already Has

1. Redesign your Courtesy Card and press Save Card Design.
2. Every member holding an older version is offered the new one automatically.

They see your card with the line {your callsign} has updated their Courtesy Card and two buttons, Update and Keep Existing. Nothing on anybody's board changes until they choose.

One offer stands at a time. Save three times in an afternoon and each member has a single offer showing your current card, not three.

Nothing comes back to you either way. A member with a hundred cards out would otherwise get a hundred notifications for one redesign. If somebody presses Keep Existing, a later redesign offers them that one too.

A board entry keeps the date it was first accepted and gains a Last Updated line when a card on it has been replaced.

What To Watch For

The default tagline is a prompt rather than a message. It reads Customize this message and other info, change colors, and add an image. It is worth replacing before you send the card to anybody.

Deleting your Courtesy Card returns you to the default card, and it is offered only while your card has never been sent. A card that is on somebody's board stays on it.

An expired license does not affect your Courtesy Card. It makes no license claim, so the designer has no license gate.

Your Courtesy Card is on your public profile. It is what is shown in your profile header and About panel when you hold no callsign.