ok so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i keep seeing people talk about QSL cards and LoTW and eQSL and honestly im not sure i understand the difference or if i need to be using all of them. like i made my first HF contact a few weeks ago on 40m and the guy said he'd send me a card and i said sure but i dont even have cards printed yet and i felt kind of bad about it.

from what i can tell LoTW is run by the ARRL and its like the official digital log matching thing, and eQSL is a separate site thats kind of like an unofficial version? and then paper cards are just the old school way of doing it. but do contacts on LoTW count for DXCC and stuff? and does eQSL count for anything official? im also wondering if i even need to bother with paper cards or if digital is fine for most purposes. sorry if this is a dumb question, just trying to figure out the whole confirmation system before i get too far behind on my logging

not a dumb question at all, this stuff confused me for years honestly. so the short version is LoTW is the one you want if you're chasing DXCC or any of the ARRL awards — it's the only digital platform they accept for those. you upload your log (usually as an ADIF file through their TQSL software) and when both sides upload the same contact it shows as confirmed. eQSL is totally separate and has its own awards system, some people love it but it doesnt count for DXCC so take that for what its worth.

paper cards are just kinda tradition at this point for a lot of ops, but some DX stations and contest stations still require them for certain awards or just prefer them. if you work a rare entity or something special its honestly still nice to have a physical card. but for day to day confirming contacts, getting on LoTW is the most important thing. get the TQSL software set up, get your callsign certificate from the ARRL, and start uploading. its a little clunky at first but once its going it just works. dont stress about being behind, you can upload old logs and it'll match anything thats already in there.

yeah what he said about LoTW is right. i'd just add that a lot of logging software like Log4OM or even WSJT-X can auto-upload to LoTW and eQSL at the same time so you dont have to think about it much after the initial setup. i personally use both just because why not, takes like two minutes to configure and then its automatic.

the paper card thing is kind of up to you. i still send and recieve them and i have a whole wall of them which is pretty cool ngl. but plenty of people go 100% digital and thats totally fine. if someone sends you a card just send one back, its good etiquette. you can get a small run printed pretty cheap at places like KB8RCR's card service or a few others, you dont need anything fancy especially starting out