Q Ron Vlach, WA0QMP, asks, “When I contact a DX station and he tells me to ‘QSL VIA CBA.’ What does that mean?”
A “CBA” means Callbook Address. He is saying that you can send your QSL card to him directly by looking up his postal address. The Callbook is the Radio Amateur’s Callbook, which used to be a telephone-directory style publication, but is now available on CD-ROM only. The term is rather generic, though. (Like saying, “Please give me a Kleenex” when you really just want any brand of tissue.) When DX stations tell you to send cards to their “CBA” addresses, they often mean the addresses shown in any number of DX address databases, not necessarily the Callbook alone.
From QST June 1999
