Category - Bureau Posting News

QSL cards have been posted to World Bureaus – Friday 23rd February 2024.
This mailing is a joint mailing between M0OXO Charles & M0URX Tim. (also thanks W3KX Jack & G1VDP Chris)
I would very much appreciate feedback from you when the QSL cards start arriving at World Bureaus or received by hams around the world?
Delays are due to issues caused by the World Customs Organisation regulations. Please remember that with the new customs tax we cannot guarantee that the parcels will get through to your bureau. We now suggest sending only direct QSL route. All bureau requests are at your own risk.
The parcels are sent by Priority Business Mail to get to the Bureaus quickly.

Total amount of QSL cards dispatched: 19,584
Via M0URX 4,887, Via M0OXO 14,697.
Total Weight: 91.586 kg gross weight
Total Shipping Cost £478.60: £5.22per kg. (91.586 kg gross weight)
Average postage cost 3p per QSL card. Dispatch listed below in grams to each destination.
The below volumes are measured in grams per parcel,

UK United Kingdom 3,020
Europe
Andorra 7
Austria 2,400
Belgium 1,400
Bosnia 48
Bulgaria 373
Croatia 685
Cyprus 7
Czech Republic 1,590
Denmark 145
Estonia 92
Finland 700
France 2,440
Germany 17,000
Greece 390
Gibraltar
Hungary 1063
Italy 5,690
Ireland 319
Latvia 76
Netherlands 2,260
Malta
Norway 328
Poland 2,440
Portugal 309
Romania 269
Slovenia 530
Slovakia
Spain 3,330
Sweden 1,010

R.O.W Andorra ROW
Algeria
Argentina 387
Armenia
Aruba
Australia 238
Barbados
Belarus 40
Bermuda
Brunei
Bosnia Herzegovina
Brazil 207
Canada 555
Chile 12
China 343
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Faroe Islands
Falkland Islands
Guatemala
Georgia
Honduras
Hong Kong
Iceland
India 13
Indonesia 295
Iran
Israel 88
Japan 14,160
Jordan
Kazakhstan 73
Kyrgyzstan
Kuwait 13
Lebanon
Liechtenstein 9
Lithuania 205
Luxembourg 210
Macau
Macedonia 21
Malaysia 10
Mexico 36
Moldova 7
Monaco
Mongolia
Namibia
New Caledonia
New Zealand 44
Nicaragua
Oman
Panama 8
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Qatar 6
Russian Fed 1,310
Saudi Arabia
Serbia 254
Singapore 10
South Africa 29
South Korea 332
Sri Lanka
Switzerland 600
Taiwan 28
Tajikistan
Thailand 98
Trinidad
Tunisia
Turkey 11
United Arab Emirates
Ukraine 895
Uzbekistan
Uruguay 8
Venezuela 7
Fiji

USA W0, W1, W2 W3, W4, WW4 W5, W6, W7, W8, W9 4,990g
WP3
WL7
WH6
KP2

2,200 Bureau cards received from RSGB 13/07/2022.

Please use OQRS only! – Sending us bureau cards wastes time, money and labour. Please USE OQRS only. Thank you

3,200 Incoming Bureau cards arrived from the RSGB Bureau on September 24th 2021.
Cards sorted and processed through OQRS as of today 4th October. You know! You do not need to send Bureau cards for DXpeditions or rare DX. Just use OQRS. You can get your bureau cards 2 years quicker that way!

Brazil – The parcel sent in March to Brazil QSL Bureau was returned for the 7th time. Unable to deliver to Brazil QSL Bureau.
Croatia – Parcel returned uncollected from July. Posted back to the Croatia Bureau 05/10/2021.

Two Bureau packages have been re-posted to Turkey and Belarus after they were returned from their respective Customs for no “Pre-Advice Electronic Data” The IARU are reluctant to provide the data we need to send Bureau parcels because the IARU believe that this data contravenes GDPR regulations.

Since posting these again the Turkey QSL Bureau was again returned by customs. Sorry TA hams… This is a problem that only IARU can sort out. 

There are many countries now that do not allow any import of packages that do not have Pre advice Electronic Data. The Universal Postal Union made it compulsory for ALL International parcels to provide the following data, the recipient’s name, telephone number and email address must be supplied electronically.

However, when reading the regulations, it is clear that “Personal Communications” (QSL Cards) are exempt from the regulations. It is though for the customs of the recipient country to determine if they allow the parcel to be forwarded to the recipient, returned or destroyed. Sending Bureau cards is a lot more complicated these days. 

QSL cards have been posted to 103 World Bureaus – Monday 5th July 2021

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A few months ago I considered closing the Bureau option on some of my call signs on OQRS as the demands and costs are getting unsustainable. I actually decided NOT to do that and at this current time, all Bureau cards are now ready to be dispatched in the next couple of weeks.
However, the global pandemic has caused a major restriction on air freight worldwide which has led to enormous increases in costs. For example, 10 small packages to ARRL have increased from £14 in total to £103, while the parcel to Japan JARL from £50 to £160, if you multiply the increases to all 90 IARU Bureau destinations the cost is quite a shock to bare.

I therefore had no choice but to introduce a $0.30c charge on Bureau cards on OQRS to help alleviate losses in my future Bureau mailings.

I appreciate to some, this may not be very popular but let me stress, this is NOT about making money. Applying a small charge/contribution will go a huge way to combat the deficit in Postage Costs to World Bureau’s. Without it the Bureau service will cease.
So you think Bureau is free? Since February 2014 we have paid £5,051.05 to get the Bureau cards posted… Free is not a word i recognise!

Thank you for your understanding…

Brazil QSL Bureau parcel that we sent last year to the new PY address has been returned endorsed “UNCLAIMED” 

I would like to express my gratitude to LABRE for solving this matter very quickly this week. Today i received the following letter from LABRE:

“Dear Tim Beaumont,
LABRE comes by means of this, to clarify some problems faced by you in sending cards QSL for Brazil.
In March 2014, LABRE transferred the management and treatment of cards coming from abroad to the São Paulo branch, and in that time, the national administration did not inspect or as the
work was being done. In 2020, there was a change in the entire Board of Directors, and we opted for the return of QSL’s management to Brasília, at the address that is currently on the IARU website https://www.iaru.org/reference/qslbureau-2/
Regarding the emails sent by you, we do not know the reason for the non-response because they did not arrive to us, we ask for your understanding and request that you use the email [email protected] to deal with
any matter with LABRE.
We emphasize that there was also a failure of communication between the Brazilian postal service and LABRE, as we did not receive reports that there were packages awaiting payment of taxes for the
completion of submission.
We are also surprised by this occurrence, as we have received several cards from other countries usually. In view of these occurrences, we have adopted the procedure of consulting weekly for
possible remittance from abroad, and with that we hope to eliminate the problems caused.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused and here we reinforce our longing for receive the cards that unfortunately returned.”

Dear LABRE,
I would like to express my gratitude to LABRE for solving this matter very quickly this week.
I have updated my website blog and added the letter very kindly sent to me by you today.
As far as i am concerned the matter is now resolved, any further loss of mail will be reported directly to you in future.
Regarding the emails, there were many email, and i got the email addresses from the LABRE Website which were obviously incorrect and have now been removed from the LABRE website. So maybe the website was not up to date? I also confirmed the email address with IARU which also gave me the wrong email address for LABRE. Again this matter is now resolved. I will be posting this parcel again to you for your members using “Printed Media Business Mail”
Some of the parcels i had sent to you in 2019 and 2020 that got returned were returned because of the new worldwide Pre Advice Delivery Data that is requested by Customs, Duane. Personal Correspondents such as QSL cards are EXEMPT from these new regulations, but Brazil Duane / Customs do not recognize the parcels as Personal Correspondents and return the parcels to sender. This was what the contents of my previous emails to ask for help from LABRE to allow these QSL parcels through customs / duane. So that was just for your information to help you understand why some of your parcels are required to pay TAX, this is because of the new worldwide Pre Advice Data for parcels, but there should be no TAX to pay on personal correspondents like QSL cards.
Once again, thank you for your co-operation and help. Please stay safe in these difficult covid times.

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