ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing about all these different ways to confirm contacts and im honestly a bit lost. like i understand the basic idea of QSL cards from when i was studying for my tech, you confirm the contact happened, great. but then theres LoTW which my elmer keeps telling me i need to set up, and eQSL which seems easier to use, and apparently some people still mail paper cards to each other or go through the bureau?

my main question is which of these actually count for awards. like if i want to work toward DXCC someday do i need LoTW specifically or will eQSL work too? and is there a reason to bother with paper cards anymore or is that just a nostalgia thing at this point. not trying to offend anyone who likes paper cards i just want to understand the practical side of all this before i invest a lot of time setting everything up

also the LoTW setup looks really intimidating with the certificate stuff, is it actually as complicated as it looks or am i overthinking it

so the short answer on DXCC is yes, LoTW is pretty much the main thing the ARRL accepts for that award. eQSL has its own award system called the Worked All Continents and a few others, but for DXCC specifically you really do need LoTW or physical cards. a lot of people use both just to cover their bases.

the LoTW setup is honestly a bit of a pain the first time but once you get through it you basically forget about it. the hardest part is just getting your certificate signed and uploaded, after that you just export your log from whatever software you use and upload it and LoTW does the matching automatically. i was dreading it for like two years before i finally sat down and did it in an afternoon. your elmer can probably walk you through the certificate part if you get stuck, thats where most people trip up.

paper cards though, dont count them out entirely. some DX stations only confirm via bureau and if youre chasing a rare entity thats sometimes your only option. plus honestly getting a nice card in the mail from somewhere exotic is still pretty cool even after all these years. i still get a little excited when i open the bureau envelope

yeah im kind of in the same boat as you, been licensed about a year and finally got LoTW working a few months ago. the certificate thing is weird but if you just follow the tqsl instructions step by step its not that bad. took me maybe an hour including waiting for the email from arrl to confirm my account.

one thing nobody told me that i wish i knew earlier — a lot of the big DX stations upload to LoTW pretty regularly now so your confirmations just kind of show up on their own which is really satisfying. i woke up one morning and had like 30 new confirmed entities i didnt even know were pending