Documentary Archive Radio Communications
(International Foundation QSL COLLECTION)
The Research and Documentation Center for the History of Radio Communications and the Electronic Media (our full name) is the world's biggest organization to collect, save, research and present whatever relates to the history of radio communications, particularly amateur radio and broadcasting.
The "Kuratorium"
"International Curatorium / QSL Collection" is an incorporated non-profit institution based in Vienna according to Austrian law. The board of Curators steers, oversees and decides on all activities and projects, and it seeks and secures the financial resources needed.
Dokumentationsarchiv Funk - Documentary Archive Radio Communications
The collections and archives comprise a unique and gigantic global data base, from the pionier days to today, supplemented by a photo collection, a library of books and magazines, and a large documentary unit of letters, public and private records, research files and similar archival material - mainly in the realms of both amateur radio and broadcasting, but also with an outstanding collection of commercial fixed and mobile radio services. Our databases respond to even the most intricate search combinations with immediate results from almost a terabyte of information.
Audiopool / Videopool / Internet-Pool
The audio-visual archives consist of thousands of films, videos, private and broadcast tapes and discs – and downloads of the most perishable medium, the internet. A constantly updated collection of media magazines, with more than 3.000 editions on file, dates back to fifty years of broadcasting - and so do the 30.000 station identifications and jingles of local, regional, national, and international broadcasters. Some of our donors have spent a lifetime recording media-related broadcasts and air-checks. We, in turn, add valuable background information interviewing media personalities, prominent or unknown ("oral history"). Nowhere else is there such a variety of unpublished or rare material.
QSL Collection
The collection of QSL cards, awards, and logbooks, covers the entire era from pioneer days to today, both in amareur radio and broadcasting. Very often they are the only source of information available tracing a person, researching the history of organizational structures, or providing pictorial material for magazines, chronics, exhibitions etc.
YASME - Collection
"Yasme" was the name of Danny Weil's yacht in which he, one of the first real "DXpeditioners" circumnavigated the world in the late fifties, introducting ham radio from many a rare spot. YASME Foundation was initially established to support his operations, and later served the 120 radio expeditions of Lloyd und Iris Colvin. Their private collection of almost one million QSL cards, the biggest individual collection is now housed at the Documentary Archives. (More about Danny Weil and the Colvins elsewhere on this site.)
The Oskar Czeija Memorial Funds
(Oskar Czeija-Gedächtnisfonds) named after the founder and Director General of RAVAG, Austria's first broadcasting station, specializes in archivalia of all kinds relating to the history of boadcasting in Austria, particularly on scientific papers (dissertations etc.), Broadcast Magazines, immediadtely accesible copies of more than 2.000 files (20.000 documents) from the National State Archives which are otherwise hard to obtain, etc. - The Historical Technical Archive of Austrian Radio collects information on more than 1.200 antenna, transmitter and studio installations. More at: Oskar Czeija-Gedächtnisfonds
