There are a lot of databases online that you can search to find a name and address in order to exchange QSL cards with your latest contact. If you can't find the information at one site, try another and another until you succeed.

Dave Bernstein, AA6YQ, just told me about a cool tool for finding QSL information, Pathfinder Online where you need enter the call sign in question only once, then with a few mouse clicks you can search more than 80 different sites for QSL information -- including 74 country-specific call sign directories and DX Summit's spot notes going back to 1997. Now that's progress!

The Web site also has a link for calculating postage to get QSLs delivered between here and there, as well as between there and there. A link for International Reply Coupons (IRCs) provides the lowdown on the current status of IRCs.

Pathfinder Online also has links less related to QSLing, but more related to making actual contacts that result in QSLs, including a trio of DX-related links and a quintet of propagation-related links.

By the way, Pathfinder Online comes from the more powerful and customizable Pathfinder, a member of the DXLab Suite of free, automatic interoperating DXing software, which you can learn all about on the Pathfinder Online Web page (just click on the DXLab button).

Until next time, keep on surfin'!

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, remembers when an IRC was cheaper than a green stamp, which was about the same time that gas cost 29 cents a gallon. To communicate with Stan, send him e-mail or add comments to his blog. By the way, every installment of Surfin' is indexed here, so go look it up.

Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor