ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about confirming contacts and getting awards and stuff but honestly im still kind of confused about the whole system. like i know what a QSL card IS, i got a few in the mail from people after some early contacts and they're really cool, but then theres LoTW which apparently is the one you need for DXCC and theres also eQSL which seems different again and i dont really understand what the difference is or which one i should be bothering with.

right now i just log everything in WSJT-X and import to HAMRS but i havent uploaded anything anywhere. is that bad? am i losing confirmations i could have had? someone at the club mentioned something about a LoTW certificate which sounds complicated. do i need to do all three or can i just pick one and be done with it

so the short version is they're all different things and honestly most active operators do at least LoTW and keep physical QSL cards for the ones that really matter to them. LoTW is run by the ARRL and yeah the certificate setup is a little annoying the first time but you only do it once and then uploading logs is pretty easy once you get the hang of the TQSL software. it's the one that counts for DXCC and most of the serious awards so if you ever want to chase DX it's worth getting set up now before you have a big backlog.

eQSL is totally separate, some people swear by it and some ignore it completely. it counts for a few awards like the eQSL awards obviously but not DXCC. the nice thing is you can get pretty digital card images which is kinda fun especially when the other station puts effort into their card design.

physical cards through the bureau or direct mail are kind of their own world. for most FT8 contacts people dont bother sending paper anymore but for a rare DX contact or a special event station a lot of folks still really like having the actual card. you're not losing anything urgent right now but i'd go get the LoTW cert sorted sooner than later, your local club or the ARRL website have decent walkthroughs for it

yeah i was in the exact same spot when i started, the whole thing felt weirdly complicated for what is basically just confirming you talked to someone lol. i ended up just doing LoTW first because thats what everyone kept saying mattered and then i started doing eQSL too because its basically zero effort once you're logging stuff anyway. i use WSJT-X too and there are settings to auto-upload to both which is pretty nice once you configure it.

physical cards i only send for stuff that feels special to me, like my first contact with Japan or whatever, not gonna print and mail a card for every FT8 qso you know