So I finally got my ticket about 8 months ago and ive been making contacts pretty regularly, mostly on 40m and some 2m local stuff. I keep seeing people mention QSL cards and LoTW and eQSL and honestly I'm a little confused about what the difference really is in practice and which ones I should bother setting up.

I understand the basic concept — you're confirming the contact happened with the other station. But like, do people still actually mail physical cards? I thought that was mostly an old thing but then I saw someone at our club meeting get super excited about a card they got in the mail from Japan so maybe not. And then theres LoTW which I set up but I'm not totally sure I did it right because I uploaded my ADIF log and it seemed to work but I havent seen any confirmations come back yet. Is there a delay or something? Or do both stations have to upload for it to count?

Also someone mentioned eQSL being different from LoTW and I honestly dont know what the distinction is. Is one better than the other for awards? I'm kind of interested in going for DXCC eventually so I want to make sure I'm doing this right from the start rather than having to go back and fix everything later.

Yeah both stations definitely have to upload to LoTW for a confirmation to show up — that's the part that trips a lot of new folks up. You could have a perfect log entry but if the other guy never uploads his side you'll just sit there waiting forever. Some operators upload every week, some do it once a year, some never bother at all. Just kind of how it is.

Physical cards are still very much a thing, especially in the DX world. A lot of DXers still prefer paper cards for certain awards or just because they like having something tangible. I've got a whole wall of cards going back to the 80s and I'd never give that up. But for DXCC specifically, LoTW is honestly the way to go now — the ARRL accepts LoTW confirmations and it saves you a ton of hassle versus mailing cards back and forth through QSL bureaus which can take like a year or more sometimes.

eQSL is kind of its own separate thing — it's faster and free and a lot of casual operators use it, but it's not accepted for DXCC credit the same way LoTW is. Some awards programs do accept it though. I'd set up all three honestly, takes like an afternoon and then you're covered no matter what the other person prefers.

im in basically the same boat as you, got licensed last year and spent way too long confused about all this. what finally made it click for me was thinking of LoTW as the "official" one for serious awards and eQSL as more of a casual digital card thing. like you'll get confirmations way faster on eQSL because people check it more casually but it doesnt count for as much.

and yeah physical cards are definitely still alive lol, i sent out maybe 30 cards after a portable operation i did and got probably half of them confirmed back by mail over the next few months. theres something genuinely nice about it even if its slow. some DX stations only do paper cards through their country's bureau which adds like another layer of complexity but youll figure that out when you get there