ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing different things from different people about how to confirm contacts and honestly im more confused now than when i started. like some guys at the club say LoTW is the only thing that matters for DXCC and others say eQSL is fine and then my elmer keeps sending me actual paper cards in the mail which is cool but also feels like a lot of effort for something that just sits in a box

so i guess my question is what does everyone actually use day to day and is there a reason to bother with more than one system? i set up a LoTW account a few weeks ago and uploaded some logs but i have no idea if im doing it right because nothing seems to be confirming. also does eQSL cost money? i saw something about different membership levels

sorry if this is a dumb question, just trying to figure out the whole QSL thing before i get too far behind on logging

not a dumb question at all, this trips up a lot of newcomers because honestly the QSL ecosystem is kind of a mess that grew organically over decades and nobody sat down and made it simple

short answer is LoTW is the gold standard if you care about DXCC credit through the ARRL. eQSL is free at the basic level and a lot of people use it casually but it doesnt count for DXCC unless you do the paid membership and even then its only accepted for certain awards. paper cards are the tradition and some awards like the old CQ awards still lean on them pretty heavily, plus a lot of DX stations still prefer a physical card as a courtesy

for your LoTW issue — the most common problem is the certificate isnt matching up with your log entries. make sure your callsign, the date, time in UTC, band, and mode all match exactly what the other station uploaded. even being off by one minute can cause a mismatch. also the other station has to have uploaded their log to LoTW too, so sometimes you just have to wait, some folks only upload once a year or after a contest

i'd honestly just set up all three. log with whatever software you use, upload to LoTW regularly, set up a free eQSL account, and keep a shoebox for the paper ones that show up. you dont have to go crazy with it

yeah what he said about LoTW timing is real, i spent like two weeks thinking my account was broken and it turned out the guy i worked just hadnt uploaded yet. patience is kind of a requirement with that system lol

one thing i'll add — if youre working a lot of digital modes like FT8 through WSJT-X it can actually auto-upload to LoTW for you if you set it up right, which is pretty nice. and a lot of FT8 operators are pretty good about keeping their logs current so confirmations come in faster than with some other modes in my experience anyway

the paper cards are genuinely fun though dont write them off entirely. got one from a station in Reunion Island last year and it's just sitting on my desk because i like looking at it