so i just got my technician a few months ago and upgraded to general last month and ive been making contacts pretty regularly now, mostly on 40m SSB and some FT8. people keep mentioning QSL cards and LoTW and eQSL and honestly i dont totally understand the difference or if i even need to bother with all of them.

from what i can tell LoTW is the ARRL thing and its used for DXCC and other awards? and eQSL is a different website thats more casual? and then physical QSL cards are the old school paper ones you mail or send through the bureau? am i getting that right at all

my main question is - do i need to sign up for all three or is one of them good enough if i dont really care about chasing awards right now. and also how does the bureau even work, i dont really get how you mail a card to someone in like japan without knowing their address

you've basically got it right actually. LoTW is the ARRL's Logbook of the World and yeah it's the main one used for DXCC, WAS, and most of the big awards. you have to go through a little verification process to get set up - they mail you a postcard to confirm your address and then you download a certificate and load it into your logging software. sounds complicated but once its done it runs pretty automatically if you're using something like WSJT-X or Log4OM.

eQSL is totally separate and a lot more casual, some people love it some people ignore it. i use both personally because some dx stations only upload to eQSL and not LoTW so it fills in some gaps. the confirmations from eQSL dont count for DXCC though unless the other station has an authenticated account, just something to know.

as for the bureau - basically your ARRL section has an outgoing bureau where you drop off a batch of cards sorted by country prefix, and they get sent in bulk to the incoming bureau in that country, and eventually to the other ham. it's slow, like sometimes a year or more, but it's basically free once you're an ARRL member. you dont need the other person's address. if you want to do physical cards to specific people faster you can do direct mail and a lot of DX stations list their address on QRZ.

i was in the same boat when i started and honestly i just signed up for LoTW right away because thats where most serious operators upload their logs. been doing it for about two years now and i have like 80 countries confirmed there just from FT8 without really trying. the digital modes upload automatically if you set it up right so it's pretty painless.

the physical cards are fun though, dont completely write them off. i've gotten some really cool ones from exotic places and i have a little pile of them on my desk. probably never gonna frame them or anything but there's something satisfying about holding an actual card from someone you worked in like a ZL or CE station. its a different feeling than a checkmark in a database you know