This post is part of Getting On The Air: Modes, Operations, and Making Contacts.
Someone works you on 20 meters, looks up your callsign on QRZ, and finds either a genuinely useful page or a blank template. That gap matters more than most hams think.
What Actually Belongs on a QRZ Bio
Your station setup, radio, antenna, typical power level, gives context to anyone who worked you and is curious what made the contact happen. QSL preferences, whether you use LoTW, eQSL, or paper cards and how to request one, save both of you a confused follow-up message. A location and grid square rounds it out without needing much more than that.
When a Full Website Makes Sense
If you are active in a specific niche, EmComm, a particular digital mode, homebrewing, a dedicated site (even a simple one built on WordPress.com or a free static site host) gives you room QRZ’s template does not: build logs, event write-ups, or a running log of activations. This is genuinely more work to maintain than a bio page, only worth it if you have enough ongoing content to justify it.
Keep It Current
A bio describing gear you sold two years ago is worse than no bio at all, it actively misleads anyone trying to understand your station. A five-minute update after a significant gear change, a new antenna, a new radio, keeps your page actually useful instead of becoming digital clutter nobody trusts.