ok so i just got my ticket about 3 months ago and ive been making contacts pretty regularly, mostly on 40m SSB and a little bit of FT8. someone in my local club told me i should sign up for LoTW and also eQSL but i honestly dont fully understand the difference or why you'd need both. like arent they both just digital ways to confirm a contact?

i also got a big stack of paper QSL cards printed up because i thought that was just what you do, and ive sent out maybe a dozen so far through the bureau. but i havent gotten any back yet and its been like 6 weeks. is that normal? i was kind of expecting it to be faster than that.

mostly i'm trying to figure out what the point of all of this is, like does it matter for anything practical or is it just a tradition thing. someone mentioned DXCC but i dont really understand how that works either. sorry if these are dumb questions, there's just a lot to take in when you're new

not dumb questions at all, everyone goes through this when they start out. so the short version is LoTW is run by the ARRL and it's the one that actually counts for DXCC and most of the major awards. eQSL is a separate thing, some people use it too but it's not accepted for DXCC. they're kind of competitors in a way, LoTW just has more weight in the awards world.

paper cards through the bureau can take months, sometimes longer depending on where the other station is located and how often they check their bureau. six weeks is nothing, i've waited over a year for some cards from certain parts of the world. if you're in a hurry you can do direct card exchange which is faster but costs a bit more with return postage and all that.

for FT8 specifically almost everyone is on LoTW, the logging software like WSJT-X and log4om can upload to LoTW automatically which is really nice. honestly for day to day confirmation LoTW is what most serious operators use but a lot of people still send paper cards just because they're fun to get in the mail. i've got a whole wall of them and i still enjoy it even after 20+ years in the hobby.

yeah what he said about the bureau timing is right, i think my record wait was like 14 months for a card from somewhere in eastern europe lol. some people skip the bureau entirely and just go direct but you gotta include a green stamp or an IRC for return postage which gets annoying.

i use all three honestly — LoTW for the awards stuff, eQSL because some guys i work regularly only use that one, and paper cards because i just like them. some of the cards you get back are really cool looking, especially from dx stations. its kind of a nice physical reminder of the contact in a way thats hard to explain to non hams