SWL (Short Wave Listener) cards are QSL cards sent by listeners who monitor radio stations without transmitting themselves.
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What is an SWL callsign?
Shortwave listeners do not transmit; they only listen. They send the station a reception report with the callsign they heard, the date, the time and the signal quality. If the station finds the report correct, it sends a QSL card in return.
Listeners have their own SWL callsign, issued by the amateur radio society or listeners' club in their country. Its format varies from country to country.
A listener's card documents a connection made without speaking: on one side someone listening to the world with an antenna, on the other a station learning that it was heard.
About this collection
The cards come from donations and transfers gathered in the museum's SWL section.
Both sides
Most cards have both a front and a back. The back usually carries the reception report itself, with the date and the frequency.
Kept as they are
Cards stay at the resolution they were scanned at — not cropped, not recompressed, not resized. What you see is the card itself.
Browsing by country
Every card belongs to a country. The country name is translated for each visitor's language; the card itself never changes.
Do you have SWL cards?
If you have cards you would like to donate to the museum, get in touch. Contributors are listed in the Thanks Corner.
Get in touch