ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about LoTW and eQSL and i honestly cant figure out which one i should be focusing on. i set up a LoTW account a while back and uploaded some logs but i have no idea if i did it right because i dont see any confirmations coming in. also someone at my club said eQSL is kind of a separate thing and some awards dont count it? im also old fashioned i guess because i really like the idea of getting actual paper cards in the mail, theres something cool about it. but i dont want to miss out on something important if most people are doing it digitally now. do you guys use all three or just pick one? and is there a reason to bother with paper if youre not chasing DXCC or something

yeah this trips up a lot of new hams, dont worry about it. basically LoTW is run by the ARRL and its what counts for DXCC, WAS, and most of the big awards. its more of a pain to set up because of the certificate stuff but once its going it pretty much runs in the background. eQSL is separate and easier to use honestly, lots of casual operators use it and it has its own awards but the big ones like DXCC wont accept it. so if you ever want to chase DXCC seriously you need LoTW confirmed contacts.

paper cards i still love them personally. i route everything through the bureau which is cheap and slow but theres nothing like pulling a card out of the mailbox from some rare DX. i do all three actually, just upload to LoTW and eQSL after every operating session and then send paper cards for the ones that feel special or when someone specifically requests one. if your LoTW confirmations arent showing up check that your station callsign and the date/time in your log match exactly what the other person uploaded, even a one minute difference can cause a mismatch.

so anyway i went through this same thing last year and honestly the LoTW setup almost made me give up on it lol. the certificate process is just weird if youre not used to it. but once i finally got tqsl configured right the confirmations started rolling in pretty fast especially after contests when everyone uploads their logs at once.

i still send paper cards for anything that feels like a big deal to me, first contact with a new country or a really tough QRP contact or whatever. some older ops really appreciate getting a physical card and will send one back which is always a nice surprise in the mailbox. eQSL i use kind of as a backup, some guys only confirm there and not on LoTW so its worth having both set up. dont stress too much about picking one, they all serve a slightly different purpose