ok so i got my technician back in march and ive been making contacts pretty regularly on 2m and some HF with my general upgrade i just passed last month. people keep mentioning LoTW and eQSL and i honestly dont know which one matters and whether i need to be sending actual paper cards too or if thats just an old school thing people do for fun now.

like i submitted my logs to LoTW through TQSL but i have no idea if im doing it right because i dont see any confirmations showing up? also someone on the air told me eQSL is kind of a separate thing and not everyone accepts it for awards. so now im confused about whether i should be doing both. and then theres the paper card thing — do people actually still do that? i got a couple cards in the mail from dx stations and they were really cool honestly but i dont know if i need to send them back or how that even works logistically.

sorry if this is a dumb question, just trying to figure out the whole confirmation system before i get too deep into chasing awards and stuff

not a dumb question at all, this stuff genuinely confused me for the first year or two i was licensed too. so the short version is LoTW is run by the ARRL and it's what most of the major awards like DXCC and WAS actually require for credit. eQSL is a separate private service and while its fine for some things a lot of the big awards dont accept it. so if you care about chasing DXCC or WAS eventually, LoTW is the one to focus on.

for your TQSL issue — when you upload a log it can sometimes take a few hours or even a day before the confirmations start showing up in your account. log into the LoTW website directly and check under your QSOs, if both you and the other station uploaded the same contact it should show as confirmed with a little checkmark. if you just uploaded and the other person hasnt yet theres nothing to confirm yet, you just have to wait.

as for paper cards — honestly its kind of both, its still required for some awards when you want the actual certificate or plaque and some dx entities and rare stations only confirm via bureau or direct mail. but for everyday contacts most people just do LoTW now. the cards in the mail are also just... fun. i still send them for good DX contacts just because i like it. if someone sends you one its definitely polite to send one back, most people use the QSL bureau through the ARRL to keep postage costs down.

yeah what he said about LoTW being the main one for awards is right. i went through this same thing when i started chasing DXCC and wasted a bunch of time uploading to eQSL thinking it counted lol. it does count for their own awards system which some people care about but its not the same thing.

one thing i'd add is just make sure your TQSL certificate is set up with the right callsign and the dates are correct, that tripped me up early on where i had the wrong QTH info in the certificate and some contacts werent matching up right. the ARRL has a pretty decent setup guide on their site if you dig around for it