so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and ive been slowly figuring out the whole QSL confirmation thing and honestly its more confusing than i expected. when i first got on HF my elmer told me to sign up for LoTW which i did but then i started hearing about eQSL and people still sending paper cards through the bureau and im not sure whats the point of having all of these at the same time

like right now i have maybe 60 or 70 contacts logged in WSJT-X and ive uploaded them to LoTW but only like 15 have confirmed back. does that mean the other people just arent on LoTW? and should i also be uploading to eQSL separately or does one feed the other somehow

also the paper card thing — i got a few cards in the mail from people and they're really cool to look at, but do i need to send one back every time? i dont even have cards printed yet. is it rude not to reply to a paper card someone sent you

yeah the three system thing trips everybody up at first, dont worry about it. basically LoTW is the gold standard for ARRL awards like DXCC and WAS, so if thats something you ever want to chase its worth keeping up with. eQSL is completely separate and some awards accept it but most of the big ones dont — its more casual and some DX stations use it because its free and easy. the two systems dont talk to each other at all so yes youll need to upload separately if you want credit on both.

the low confirmation rate on LoTW is totally normal especially when youre working FT8 and making lots of contacts fast. lots of people upload in batches, some only once a year, and some never bother at all. just be patient and keep uploading your own logs and itll slowly tick up over time.

as for paper cards, its considered good practice to reply but nobody is going to track you down if you dont. honestly id suggest getting a small batch printed at some point, there are services online that do like 100 cards for not much money. getting a nice card in the mailbox from some station halfway around the world never really gets old

i was in the exact same spot like a year ago and honestly i just kind of picked one and went with it lol. i do LoTW for anything i care about for awards and i set up eQSL too because why not, takes like two minutes to upload once you have your log exported. some guys on the clusters specifically mention they're on eQSL in their spots so its worth having the account active.

the paper bureau thing is kind of its own whole world. i staretd sending cards through the ARRL outgoing bureau and its cheap but slow, like you might wait months before someone on the other end actually gets it. direct mail is faster but gets expensive for DX. some people just dont bother with paper at all anymore which is kind of sad but i get it