It’s All in the Cards! QSL Cards from Mali

Earlier this month OnAllBands turned our attention to Morocco, an African nation in the northwestern corner of the continent, almost 1,500 miles north of today’s featured DXCC entity, Mali.

February offers an excellent chance to add Mali to your DXing conquests. The 160-6M, SSB/FT8 TZ1CE DXpedition by DK1CE from Bamako is scheduled to run until March 1, 2026.

Bamako is the capital and largest city of Mali, a country of 25.6 million residents. The city of 4.2 million on the Niger River serves as Mali’s administrative center and has experienced significant population growth, ballooning from 100,000 in 1960 to its current number. This growth, though, pales when compared to other world cities that have exploded since the 1960s, most notably one location which grew from a relatively moderate city to stand today as the world’s most populous.

Can you name it? See answer below.

Quick Facts About Mali

• Mali is a landlocked country of western Africa covering 478, 841 square miles (larger than Texas, smaller than Alaska).
• There are 16 landlocked countries in Africa, more than any continent. Mali is the third largest landlocked country in Africa behind Chad and Niger.
• About 65% of Mali is covered in desert or semi-desert. Almost 90% of the country’s population can be found in its more humid southern region around the banks of the Niger and in Bamako and other southern cities.
• Mali is ranked as one of the world’s hottest and poorest countries. Studies place it at either the #1 or #2 hottest country (Burkina Faso is sometimes noted as holding the top spot). Mali has an average annual temperature of 84.6° F, and cities like Timbuktu experience daily highs often exceeding 104° F. Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has roasted under temperatures as high as 130° F, not too far behind the highest temperature ever recorded, 134° F in Death Valley, California, 1913. Experts note that the intense, year-round heat in Mali is due to direct sunlight, little cloud cover, and minimal rain in the country’s Sahel and Sahara deserts.

QSL Cards

The active hams at DX Engineering have had great success contacting Mali (a good reason to contact them for help with your gear if you’d like to do the same). Here are a few of the QSL cards from their collections.

George, K3GP, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, provided OnAllBands with these QSL cards from Mali.

Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, pulled this Mali QSL card from his collection:

Mark, W8BBQ, DX Engineering customer/technical support specialist, reached TZ6TR from Bandiagara, Mali, in September 2010 on 17M SSB. Bandiagara is a small town of around 25,000 people featuring the country’s highest point, Mount Hombori (3,789 feet) in Mali’s Mopti region. It is shown on the card below.