One of the more effective approaches to QSLing with minimal extra expense involved, is the Period Report. This involves creating a series of reception reports encompassing on-air loggings conducted over a numbers of days or even weeks.
Period Reports provide the station whether shortwave, medium wave, FM, utility, pirate or clandestine - a series of reports with useful information and a better indication of how well the station's signal is received over an extended amount of time, as opposed to one of thirty minutes or less duration.
The best, or initial logging should include details in the usual reporting format to include the station name, UTC time (or regional time for South American or Indonesian stations) frequency and program details. Reporting for subsequent monitoring should include the same, as well as any parallel frequencies the programming is heard on. The SINPO rating 1-5 (signal strenth, interference, noise, propagation, overall) is important and should include additional observations. Each monitoring session can be from 15-30 mnutes, depending on the time you have available.
Period Reporting has proven to be worth the time in terms of a more rapid response rate. PR reports usually receive a broader focus from the station, compared to a brief single report, and in doing so the station may respond with extra QSL cards, stickers and additional station souvenirs.
Using a Period Report may help you achieve the prized verification that has eluded you for years! Good luck.
Gayle Van Horn/QSL Report-Monitoring Times
