Funding Application 1 2015-2016

QSL Cards

Application Title

Amateur Radio QSL Card Design Competition

How do you want to develop, what is your development goal and why?

In the amateur radio community, when you make a noteworthy radio contact with another amateur (for example, because of the distance between the parties, or because of the difficulty of making contact with the technology being used) it is common practice to acknowledge that contact with a QSL card. These cards can also be used when taking part in radio sport competitions to prove that contacts have been made allowing the contact to be scored.

In its most basic form, a QSL card is simply a postcard that states the technical details of the contact and the callsigns of the parties involved. However, many clubs and individual amateurs use the QSL cards that they send out as an opportunity to express themselves creatively, and to show other amateurs the sorts of things they get up to.

We are one of the few active university amateur radio societies left in this country, and we want to be able to use our QSL cards to demonstrate just how alive and well our hobby is here in Southampton. Additionally, being sited at a world leading university, we have the expertise to engage in really interesting radio-based activities, and QSL cards would be a perfect opportunity to show off our achievements.

How will you reach this goal?

We want to run a competition to design our new QSL cards, open to all members of the society. The brief will be to come up with a design that represents the society identity, shows off some of our more interesting accomplishments, and is compatible with the values of the society, the Union, and the University.

The winning entry will be decided by a vote of all members of the society.

The winning entry will then be printed and used as our club QSL card going forward. Additionally, the designer of the winning entry will be invited to submit a design for their own personal QSL card.

We will have 75 copies of the club QSL cards printed for club use. Additionally 25 copies of the competition winner's personal QSL cards will be printed and presented to them as a prize.

How much are you requesting and what specifically is it for?

The cost for having 100 professional-quality postcards printed (75 for the club, and 25 as the competition prize) is £50.89 inc. VAT & postage from http://www.moo.com/uk/.

We are able to contribute £20.89 from club funds, meaning that in total, we are requesting £30 from SUSU.

How will this help towards the zone aims and objectives?

Often people don't understand why amateur radio falls within Creative Industries. However, we believe the truth is that our engineers are some of the most creative people on campus, but choose to express themselves primarily in the technology they develop.

This competition will give our members an opportunity to demonstrate this creativity artistically, and we hope that the discussions and ideas prompted by this competition will give our members an opportunity to take ownership of, and contribute creatively to, our collective sense of identity as a society.

The resulting QSL cards will allow us to share this identity world-wide as we continue to engage in radio sport and other amateur radio activities at a national and international level, promoting the Union and the University in the process.

Total requested

£30.00

End-fed Zepp

An End-fed Zepp is a very portable and easy to set up antenna used for HF operation on outings. The frequencies for which End-fed Zepps are suitable are frequencies which can be used to communicate to people across the globe, in the correct conditions.

In the past, we have used an End-fed Zepp belonging to a club member. However, this member is no longer active, so we would like to purchase one for the club's use.

We intend to provide half the cost from club membership fees, and the other half from this application.

Example supplier: G Whip £51 including P&P