The AM Forum

Every QSL tells a story...

This one begins in occupied France.

For the rest of the story, visit www.dashtoons.com.

And for a look at my latest designs plus full details on K1NSS Custom QSL, visit http://www.dashtoons.com/K1NSS_Design.html

What story might you tell?

Recent custom QSL work by Jeff K1NSS

Please stay tuned for more stock designs.

We do club logos too.  Finished this today for Carolina Contesters' Cadre of Power, keystone of their Five Year Plan for Global Radiosports Hegemony.

Latest custom card.  Designed for a player of chess and fine (gasp!) CW radio. Yes, one of the pieces is a bit unconventional, and it might be construed as a Bishop's Gambit instead of a Gambetto di Begali, but we took a little license in the spirit of Bobby Fischer.

A new client/ new young ham/IT Seeker was seeking, to say the least, an unconventional kitchen sink blending of his KX3 QRP passion, his Lambda/LSP preoccupation, his two pets, his dear old 5 1/4 floppy drive, his alto sax and love for gadding about in the great outdoors. We tossed it all in our blender and came up with a trippy Trekky smoothie titled "Airborne,"  playfully in the spirit of Himalayan art adorned with faux Sanskrit and rendered in two versions, one with mag loop antenna and one with alto sax.

Not your OM's QSL to be sure, and perhaps a head-scratcher for the bald eagle crowd, but nevertheless  just the kind of QSL design challenge we enjoy.

Ham kids today! Against all odds and OFs, our hobby will live long and prosper.

K6GUC is Good to Go in our custom QSL design featuring some of his favorite things – including two FB rides by Beechcraft and Harley.

KK4DSD asked for Ham in Space on Wry and mentioned his pets, so we assembled a crew and took off for parsecs unknown, just Laika that. Can you spot the Cosmophone and Star Roamer?

Our latest custom design was for Ken WA4SQM, a retired US Naval Aviator who spent time piloting , among other aircraft, the Douglas EA-3B Skywarrior.

Affectionately known the "Whale", among some other less affectionate names, the A-3, the heaviest carrier-based aircraft of its day, saw many modifications for a variety of missions, not few of which involved some intensive, very broadband, um, "DXing."

Kinda figures too, cuz Ken chased electrons as a kid ham, just as he carries on today as a contester and QRP enthusiast.

WA4SQM gave us license to fancifully render his ride as a spooky "Bat Whale," an extrapolation of the bat insignia for USN Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One, with whom Ken was associated for much of his career.

Check out our portfolio for more about our cool ham clients and their new QSLs: www.dashtoons.com/K1NSS_Design.html (http://www.dashtoons.com/K1NSS_Design.html)

New Ones.

New work.

Latest.

Our latest card was for a Rocket City USA YL, one of a two-ham, three generation NASA family.

Lots more new cards to see: http://www.dashtoons.com/K1NSS_Design.html

Yes we do Old School!

Bob W7SWL is a fan of retro QSL art and we put our heads together on a pair of designs - one for Bob's 10 meter beacon and a second for SOP ham QSOs.  His cool southwestern QTH offered plenty of grist for the mill and we had a ball playing with different treatments.  Special fun was the old time toony number, in which Bob gave us a pretty free hand in that goofy, punny, raggle-taggle retro style you find on old QSLs, loaded with little gags stuck all over  An earlier, more involved version of the Gila Monster powered beacon is attached to show you the sort of detail we get into along the during the design process with our customers.  No sooner did Bob finish with his QSL cards than he returned for two Christmas card designs, based on some marvelous woodcuts produced by his late uncle, an American painter of some note during the earlier 20th century.  It was our honor and privilege to format the orginal art as a greeting card and create some specialized typography for the inscription.

Drop by for a closer look at all we've done! http://www.dashtoons.com/K1NSS_Design.html

WHEN QSLS GO WILD...

For some reason, we just had a run on wildlife QSLs, from B-104 wielding honeybees and QRP dragonflies to hamshack-eating Kudzu vines. Love to draw all sorts of critters and creepers, so this gave us a chance to go ham wild.  BTW, that's a repurposed Russian cigarette tin, suggested by G4GXL, who sent me great photos from which to draw the radio he has yet to build.  Something tells me Steve will be under some pressure to actually build that fanciful QRP set, so we'll just have to see what comes to pass. Our first customer from England BTW, a New One for K1NSS Design.

More details about the designs and their ops at http://www.dashtoons.com/K1NSS_Design.html

Home Team, Down Home, Out & About, our Custom QSL customers are all over the map and we never know what's next - which is just the way we like it!  Share your ideas with us and let's see where it takes us.
http://www.dashtoons.com/K1NSS_Design.html (http://www.dashtoons.com/K1NSS_Design.html)

W1RE ARRAY

Bob wanted sevreral cards that had some fun with his distinctive call and we jumped on this job.  The romance of ceramic spreaders, dogbones and open wire feed drew us to ham radio long ago and I am a user of the stuff today, albeit the more budget variety, done with plastic conduit spreaders. Just something about that 600 ohm "Stairway to Heaven." Bob just set us loose we had a ball, including one of his English Mastiffs as the dog bone mascot.