Outbound International Reply Coupons Discontinued

Bryan:

Nice tower and antennas you got there!

 

About PayPal...I refuse to use them because, among other things, I do not like having a percentage of every payment going to a schmuck I'd not even say hello to if he were the last man on Earth. By which I mean Peter Thiel. And I don't like being forced to use credit cards, either.

 

If they kept it going with their on-line service, it could be enough to keep a person or two busy.

Or, maybe they could contract it out to a work-at-home operation by some bonded person(s).

I think they are making a hasty decision due to the stress of finding cost-cutting ideas as fast as they can. Do you think IRC's are a big expense item for the entire USPS????

-BL

 

How do I know the right amount of stamps for EVERY DX ENTITY, where do I get them from, how I have them handy when needed and so on. They should have just an automated system or an employee for the entire country in charge with these cupons. In my opinion The ARRL in fact should go and support the IRC's cupons for us. The fact that they are not interested (but instead they want the lotw) is one, and the fact I am a collector of QSL cards makes a significant difference for example.

 

Really? You think not?
They are financed by the government.
Just because the government set them up as a private corporation doesn't mean they are not part of the government.

 

I think the USPS is making a mistake. If they want to cut costs, then quit giving bonuses to the top heavy leadership within!
As a ham, I buy them a hunderd at a time because I have discovered that I get a substantially higher return on my QSL cards than with cash-ola.
(I actually did a semi-scientific study on this for a period of 5+ years.) I only compared contries with the same countries.
Cash - 67% return aveage IRC - 82% return average
www.w5txr.net "click on "UPU International Reply Coupon
or http://www.w5txr.net/UPU-International-Reply-Coupon.html For valuable and historical information on the IRC.

W5TXR
Mark A. Lacy, CEO
W5TXR Electronic Labs
New Braunfels, TX

ARRL Asst. Technical Coordinator
ARRL Certified Teacher/Instructor
ARRL OES
ARRL & W5YI VE

 

NO they are not, I know this as a fact.

 

I just went on-line and ordered some IRC to add to my collection , I think they are good
through 2013.

 

The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office and U.S. Mail, is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution. The USPS traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, where Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The cabinet-level Post Office Department was created in 1792 from Franklin's operation and transformed into its current form in 1971 under the Postal Reorganization Act.
The USPS employs over 574,000 workers and operates over 218,000 vehicles.^[4] The USPS is the operator of the largest vehicle fleet in the world.^[5] The USPS is legally obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality. The USPS has exclusive access to letter boxes marked "U.S. Mail" and personal letterboxes in the United States, but still competes against private package delivery services, such as UPS and FedEx.
The USPS has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. Since the 2006 all-time peak mail volume,^[6] after which Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act",^[7] (which mandated $5.5 billion per year to be paid into an account to pre-fund retiree health-care, 75 years into the future—a requirement unique to this agency^{[citation needed]}), revenue dropped sharply due to recession-influenced^[8] declining mail volume,^[9] prompting the postal service to look to other sources of revenue while cutting costs to reduce its budget de

 

The USPS is in the worst possible position for any business. They are told what to do and what not to do by the Congress (which is acutely dysfunctional.) They have been told to 'forward-fund' their pension system, something no other branch of government, and virtually no private business, has ever done. The sole reason for this forward funding is so the Congress can use that fund as collateral in funding our 'continuing resolutions'. The only thing the USPS can do without interference is decide how big to make the stamps.

Emmett
K2ADK

 

To all of you ham radio “all knowing and will discuss anything with authority” operators, I would suggest to check this link


http://www.ask.com/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service?o=3986&qsrc=999


It may clarify some misguided opinions.


It also appears that nobody caught that somehow public opinion was solicited.
The vast majority of replays were for to continue selling of IRC by USPS and a DEMOCRATIC decision (?) was made to the contrary.


Why did they do it if it does not make any difference?


And since the USPS apparently knows how to count, how about letting us know HOW much SAVINGS there will be in discontinuing “the service”?


I suppose nobody cares about that either.

PS I think 10 meters is open ... QSY...

 

Savings? Nothing at all, if you buy them off the internet they charge you shipping. Everyone should order some that might send them a message.

 

I haven't bought any in a long time either. I buy foreign stamps online usually at a lower cost than IRCs cost, and send the DX station an SASE and that has worked well for me. For PSK31 QSOs, I have a return rate of 85.11%. I also use LOTW, which has helped me in not having to get cards checked or send them off to the ARRL. I got PSK31 WAS with only having to send one card for checking thanks to LOTW.

A ham I knew many years told me of how he had lived in Bolivia and was active there. He always had hams sending him IRCs, but the only post office that would redeem them was main post office in La Paz. Since he traveled there once a month, he always had a big stack to redeem. Some receiving post offices don't know what to do with them, or simply don't want to bother with them, so they don't always help in getting that QSL.

With LOTW, easier ways to send money overseas, and DX stamp dealers, that along with the decline in shortwave broadcasting(many SWLers/DXers are also big consumers of IRCs), I can see why the demand for them is in decline so the USPS is making a business decision to stop selling them.

It's unfortunate, but we just have to adapt.

 

Since redeeming IRCs must continue (it is a requirement of participation in UPU, which countries sign up to by treaty), I am not sure what savings there are from discontinuing sales - there is still all the backoffice work of settling accounts between the issuing & redeeming postal authorities as well as UPU.

So if there is a savings, it comes from not stocking & distributing to post offices what apparently was not available at a lot of post offices already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieuBkWHfCuc

73, ex-VR2BG/p.

 

I usually have IRC's for sale...If countries stop using them, then as a manager, I will stop accepting them.
73
Ron