ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and ive been making contacts pretty regularly, mostly HF on 40 and 20 meters, some SSB some FT8. everyone keeps telling me different things about QSLing and im honestly a bit lost at this point.

some guys tell me LoTW is the only one that matters for awards like DXCC and WAS, and that eQSL is kind of a second tier thing that not everyone respects. but then other people say eQSL is totally fine and way more convenient. and THEN theres still people mailing me actual paper cards which i love getting honestly but i dont know if i should be sending them back or if thats even expected anymore.

like do i have to upload to all three of these or can i just pick one and stick with it? and for the paper cards people send me, am i supposed to send one back even if they didnt ask? i feel like im offending someone every time i dont respond to a card but i also dont have a huge budget for postage right now. sorry if this is a dumb question, just trying to figure out the etiquette here

not a dumb question at all, this stuff confused me for a long time too. so heres how i think about it — LoTW is basically the gold standard if youre chasing ARRL awards like DXCC. the ARRL runs it and they only accept LoTW or physical cards for credit, not eQSL. so if DXCC is on your radar eventually, you really do want to be uploading to LoTW. the setup is a little annoying at first with the certificate stuff but once its going it kind of runs in the background.

eQSL is totally real and plenty of people use it, theres even some awards that specifically use it, but yeah its not interchangeable with LoTW for the big ARRL stuff. i use both personally just because some ops only do one or the other.

for paper cards — honestly the etiquette has relaxed a lot. if someone sends you a card its nice to send one back but nobody is going to be mad if you dont, especially if youre just starting out and watching your budget. a lot of people use the bureau system through your ARRL section to keep postage costs down, or you can just do direct when you have the means. dont stress too much about it, most of us have a pile of unanswered cards sitting around at any given time lol

yeah what he said about LoTW is right. i was in the same boat when i started and honestly i just do all three now because its not that much extra work once everything is set up. i use WSJT-X for FT8 and it logs everything automatically and i can batch upload to LoTW every few weeks, takes maybe 5 minutes. eQSL i mostly forget about but i check it every couple months and upload my log then too.

the paper card thing is kind of personal preference territory. i actually really enjoy getting them and i try to send back when i can, there's something cool about having a physical thing from a contact you made. but yeah the bureau is the way to go for keeping costs manageable, direct mail to rare DX stations gets expensive fast. your section manager can tell you how the outgoing bureau works if you havent looked into it yet