ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and ive been making contacts pretty regularly on 40m and 20m, some SSB some FT8. everyone keeps telling me i need to confirm my contacts but honestly the whole QSL thing is kind of overwhelming. like there's LoTW which seems to be the official ARRL thing, and then theres eQSL which is a different website, and then some people still send physical cards through the mail or through the bureau? and i don't really understand which one i'm supposed to use or if i need to do all three.

i did make a LoTW account and uploaded my ADIF log but i've only gotten like 3 confirmations in two months even though i've made probably 150 contacts. is that normal? do most people just not bother uploading? also someone mentioned something about a QSL manager and i have no idea what that is. i'm not chasing any awards right now but i think i might want to eventually so i want to make sure i'm doing this right from the start.

yeah the QSL thing is genuinely confusing at first, dont worry about it. basically the short answer is you dont HAVE to use all of them but if you want to maximize confirmed contacts it helps to at least do LoTW and eQSL since they're free and easy once you get the hang of uploading logs.

LoTW is what counts for DXCC and most of the big ARRL awards so that one's probably the most important if you're thinking long term. the reason you're only seeing a few confirmations is just that not everyone uploads regularly — some people batch upload once a month, some once a year, some never. totally normal. your contacts are in there they just haven't confirmed yet. eQSL is a bit more casual and you'll usually get confirmations faster because people tend to upload there more often. and then physical cards are kind of their own thing, some people love them and collect them, some DX stations still require a paper card for certain awards. a QSL manager is just someone who handles the card mailing for a DX station that doesnt want to deal with postage from wherever they are, usually you send your card to the manager's address instead.

honestly just keep uploading to LoTW after every session and maybe sign up for eQSL too, and over time the confirmations will pile up. it's kind of a slow burn hobby within the hobby.

i was in the exact same spot about a year ago lol. what helped me was just picking one and sticking with it for a while before worrying about the others. i started with eQSL because the interface made more sense to me and i got a bunch of confirmations pretty quickly which was motivating. then i figured out LoTW later once i actually cared about awards. still havent really gotten into paper cards but i kind of want to, theres something cool about getting an actual card in the mail from some station in Japan or wherever.