ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i keep hearing about all these different ways to confirm contacts and im honestly a little lost. like i set up a LoTW account a few weeks ago and uploaded my log from WSJT-X but i have no idea if i did it right because i only have like 3 confirmations and ive made way more contacts than that. also someone at my club mentioned eQSL and said some awards dont accept it but others do? and then theres just mailing physical cards which seems really cool but also like... expensive if youre doing it for every contact?

i guess my main question is what do most people actually bother with day to day. do you do all three or just pick one. and is LoTW the gold standard or is that just what older hams say. not trying to be rude just genuinely curious how this all works in practice

so the short answer is LoTW is pretty much the standard for serious award chasing, especially DXCC. arrl runs it and they only accept LoTW or paper cards with a wet signature for DXCC credit, so eQSL doesnt count for that one. but eQSL has its own awards and a lot of people do use it, its just a different ecosystem basically.

as for your low confirmation count — thats actually normal when youre starting out. LoTW only shows a confirmation when BOTH sides have uploaded the same contact. so if the other guy never uploads to LoTW or uploads months later, youll get the credit then. some dx stations upload in batches like once a year or whatever. just give it time and keep uploading your logs regularly, youll see it tick up slowly. i'd say do all three honestly — paper cards for the ones that feel special, LoTW for everything, and eQSL is basically free so why not.

yeah i was in the same boat when i started. paper cards are fun but i only send them when someone sends me one first or if its a really notable contact, otherwise the postage adds up fast especially for dx. i think i spent like 12 bucks just sending cards to a handful of european stations and only got two back lol. LoTW is free after you get your certificate set up and once you get that part figured out its pretty painless. the certificate setup tripped me up at first too so if you havent done that part yet thats probably why confirmations seem low