okay so i just got my technician last month and ive been making contacts on 10m and 2m and people keep asking me if im on LoTW or eQSL and honestly i dont really understand the difference. like i set up a LoTW account because someone told me to but i havent actually uploaded anything yet because i cant figure out the certificate thing. and then theres eQSL which seems easier but someone at the club said it doesnt count for awards? and then some people still send actual paper cards through the bureau and i got a couple in the mail last week which was honestly pretty cool.

so my question is basically — do i need all three? is one better than the others for DXCC or whatever awards people go for? i dont even know if im chasing awards yet but i figured i should probably be confirming contacts properly from the start so i dont regret it later. any advice would be really appreciated, still learning all this stuff

welcome to the hobby, the QSL confirmation thing is genuinely confusing at first so dont feel bad about it. short answer is that for DXCC specifically, LoTW is really the gold standard and thats what the ARRL uses. eQSL has its own award system which is fine but its separate. paper cards are accepted for DXCC too if you submit them physically to the ARRL but honestly most people just use LoTW now because its way easier once you get it set up.

the certificate setup for LoTW is the annoying part — you have to request a certificate through their system and they mail you a postcard to your address on record to verify you, which takes a little while. but once thats done uploading logs is pretty straightforward especially if you use something like WSJT-X or Log4OM because they can upload directly.

i'd say go ahead and do all three honestly. eQSL is quick and easy and some people only confirm there, and paper cards are just fun to collect. but if you want to chase DXCC someday make sure LoTW is working. dont skip it just because the setup is annoying, future you will be glad you started logging from day one.

yeah what he said about LoTW. also just to add — i went like two years before i bothered setting up LoTW properly and then i had to go back and upload all my old logs and some of them werent matching because i had my time zone set wrong in my logger. small thing but it caused a bunch of contacts not to confirm. so definitely sort out the settings before you upload a big batch.

eQSL i use too, mostly because some of the guys i work on 40m seem to only bother with that one. paper cards i still send for anything interesting — first contact with a new country or a special event station or whatever. theres something nice about getting an actual card in the mail even if it doesnt really count for anything digital