okay so i just got my license a few months ago and ive been making contacts here and there, mostly on 40m SSB and a little FT8. someone on the air told me i should be uploading to LoTW and also eQSL but then another guy said paper cards are still the way to go and now im just confused about the whole thing.

like is there a reason to do all three or can i just pick one? i signed up for LoTW but the whole certificate process took me forever to figure out and i still dont totally understand if my uploads are actually working. i can see contacts in the log but i dont know how to tell if theyve been confirmed or not. eQSL seemed way easier to set up but people keep saying its not as accepted for awards. and paper cards, i mean i love the idea of them but i dont even know how to request them from someone or what the process is with the bureau vs direct.

sorry for the wall of text, just trying to figure out what the normal workflow is for newer hams these days

no worries on the long post, this stuff genuinely is confusing at first and nobody explains it well. so the short version is: LoTW is the gold standard for most major awards like DXCC and WAS through the ARRL, eQSL is easier and faster but only counts for a smaller set of awards, and paper cards are kind of the traditional/sentimental route that some people swear by and others never bother with anymore.

you dont have to do all three. most people these days do LoTW at minimum if they care about awards at all, and a lot of folks also do eQSL just because its basically no extra effort once youre set up. for LoTW, in your account you should see a section that shows confirmed QSOs — if a contact uploads their log and yours matches, it shows as confirmed. the certificate thing is annoying the first time but once its done its done.

paper cards, the bureau is cheap but super slow, like months or even over a year sometimes. direct means you send a card and a return envelope with some IRCs or a couple dollars and they mail one back. some rare DX stations or old timers still really appreciate the physical card. i still send them occasionally but i dont stress about it. just get LoTW working first and go from there honestly.

yeah i was in the same boat not that long ago. what clicked for me was thinking of them as just different systems that dont really talk to each other, so a confirmation in eQSL doesnt automatically show up in LoTW or anything like that. i use WSJT-X for FT8 and it can upload to LoTW automatically after each contact which is pretty nice once you configure it, saved me a lot of manual work. for SSB i just log everything in my logging software and do a batch upload every few weeks.

the paper card thing i honestly havent gotten into yet but i did receive one in the mail from a guy in Japan which was really cool, wasnt expecting it at all