Overview

QSL Shack

QSL Shack is a free platform for licensed amateur radio operators. It combines a logbook, a digital QSL card exchange and a community in one place, and all three read the same set of your data.

Most operators run three or four separate applications to do this today. They log a contact in one, upload an ADIF file to another, re-key their station details into a third, and mail a paper card for the fourth. Every one of those steps can introduce an error, and every correction then has to be made in four places.

What One Set Of Data Means

Your name, your locations, your grid square, your station details and your callsigns are entered once, on your account. Every part of QSL Shack that needs them reads them from there.

Add a second callsign and you do not create a second account. Correct your grid square and you correct it once. Send a contact to QRZ or to Logbook of the World and it goes with the station details already on file, rather than being re-keyed into an upload form.

The Main Pieces

Your logbook. Log contacts by hand or import an ADIF file from the software you already use. A logbook belongs to one callsign, so operators holding several keep them separate without keeping several accounts. See Logbook Overview.

Confirmation. When both operators have logged the same contact here, QSL Shack pairs them, confirms both logs and issues a certificate the two of you share. Nobody has to be asked. See How QSO Matching And Confirmation Work.

QSL cards. Design a card once. When a contact is confirmed, the cards are exchanged automatically and appear on each operator's board. Nothing is printed and nothing is mailed.

Integrations. QSL Shack syncs with your QRZ logbook and exchanges contacts and confirmations with ARRL's Logbook of the World, in both directions, from the same log you already keep here. See QRZ Logbook Sync and Logbook of the World.

The community. Posts, groups, clubs, events, direct messages, and a reputation system that recognizes the operators who help others.

How To Get Started

1. Create your account. With a callsign it takes about a minute, because your details are filled in for you. See Creating Your Account.
2. Check the location the guided setup proposes, and correct it if the antenna is not where the mail goes. See Your Locations.
3. Create your first logbook. See Creating And Managing Logbooks.
4. Log a contact, or bring your existing log in from an ADIF file or from QRZ. See Logging QSOs.

What It Costs

Nothing. QSL Shack is free to licensed operators, permanently.

What To Watch For

Anything an integration cannot write, in either direction, is listed with its reason on your Exception Reports. Nothing is ever discarded in silence.

An account without a callsign can do everything social. Logging contacts and exchanging cards need one, because a logbook belongs to a callsign.