QSLs Come to LAB

These verifications, or "QSL's," as they are called (from the Morse code symbol "Q-S-L" for "I acknowledge receipt"), are cards and letters sent to radio hobbyists by radio stations to confirm the listener's reception of a distant or hard to receive station. QSL's are still issued by stations today, but their origins date back to the earliest days of radio.

Listeners would send the station a written report of what was heard, and if it checked out, the station would send its QSL. In radio's early days these reports helped stations know that they were being heard. From the standpoint of long-distance listeners (known as "DXers"), the QSL established that they had heard the station. Many QSL's are quite attractive, and include photos, station logos and other graphics, as well as technical information and other descriptive material about the station.

The collection spans the globe and includes cards from the early 1920's to the present. It focuses on regular AM stations and shortwave broadcasting stations, but also includes ships, planes and other "utility " stations, as well as some amateur radio QSL's. The files and database have been set up so that a particular station's QSL's, which often span a number of years, can be quickly located and examined. The CPRV Collection contains QSL's from almost 150 individuals, many of whom "listened in" (as radio listening was first called) during the 1920s and 1930s.

The CPRV is an active organization and continues to track down "new-old" QSL's to ensure that The CPRV Collection at the LAB, documenting this little known but important part of radio history, will continue to grow.