Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Alien QSL Bureau Announced

Headlines raved this week, perhaps erroneously, that the United Nations was preparing to name an official ambassador to represent earth in preparation of alien contact. While some have guffawed at the idea of an ambassador to aliens, the idea is not without merit. If an alien ship parked itself in orbit around earth and sent out a "Take me to your leader" message, who would we point them toward? While I'm sure there is no shortage of political potentates who would self-nominate themselves for the position, the scramble for supremacy would look like, well, a typical UN meeting . Appointing a nominal talking head to be the face of earth would hide what a bunch of squabbling children we really are for probably at least an hour to two.

Nevertheless, we applaud the UN for being so far thinking, even if they weren't. The collected members of the Lost Island DX Society have never been accused of being deep thinkers, but we know how to ride the coattails of a good idea when we see one. So the LIDS are announcing the establishment of the first Extraterrestrial QSL Bureau to assist The Deserving in getting confirmations for (future) extraterrestrial QSOs. With the price of domestic and international postage going up every year it seems, one can only imagine the postal service's rates for Alpha Centauri. An SASE might bankrupt an individual.

The LIDS Extraterrestrial QSL Bureau will assist in bundling terrestrial QSLs and transporting them to their destination via rocket ship or whatever means is most cost effective. It will likewise receive, sort and distribute incoming QSLs from extraterrestrial locales, making it cost effective for our extraterrestrial ham radio friends to confirm all those W4 cards.

Don't send any envelopes to the LIDS Extraterrestrial QSL Bureau just yet. Details of the bureau operation will be forthcoming after initial Contact.

5 comments:

  1. Great! This will so help when I start my Worked All Galaxies. Aricebo here I come!

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  2. Is Art Bell underwriting this from Manilla? I remain unconvinced that ET hams wish nothing but best DX to us and our families. Something about their big heads and advanced technology tells me that any contact, never mind QSL, will mark the end of Good Luck in The Contest of existence. This also opens the door to Galactic Neighborhood Associations with their petty complaints about matter transporter interference and unsightly antennas obstructing their view of dinner. Worse than a Cookbook, IT'S A HANDBOOK!!!!

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  3. Aricebo is known to be the bastard child of Mr Arecibo.. just rumors..

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  4. The whole "space race" thing was concocted by a small group of well-funded hams on the DXCC Honor Roll. Their goal is to triple the number of DXCC entities by the year 2020 by activating DXpeditions to the moon, asteroids, and planets.

    Bob K0NR

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  5. K0NR, Shhhhhhh, you're letting the cat outta da bag. Besides, we got Black and Decker cordless power tools and velcro out of the deal. Not to mention that yummy 'astronaut' ice cream.

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