ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and im starting to get into chasing DX a bit more seriously, got my first pile-up contact last week with a station in the Azores which was pretty exciting. anyway ive been reading about all these different awards and im just kind of overwhelmed honestly. DXCC, WAS, WAZ, there's like a dozen different ones and i dont even know where to start or which one makes sense for me to pursue given that im running 100w and a dipole in the attic.

like do you have to submit all your contacts through LoTW or can you still use paper QSLs? and does it matter what bands the contacts are on for the basic awards vs the endorsements? i feel like every time i look this up i find a different answer depending on which page i land on. anyone gone through this process recently and can kind of walk me through how it actually works in practice?

oh man i remember being exactly where you are a couple years ago, it really is a lot to take in at first. ok so the short version — WAS (worked all states) is probably the easiest to knock out relatively quickly and it gives you a good feel for how the whole LoTW confirmation process works before you jump into something bigger. DXCC is the big one most people end up chasing longterm, 100 entities confirmed to get the basic certificate and then you just keep going from there. WAZ is worked all zones, 40 CQ zones around the world, thats a fun one too but some of the zones are genuinely hard to fill depending on where you live and what bands you have access to.

for your setup honestly dont sell yourself short, 100w and even an attic dipole can get you a lot further than you think especially if you learn to work the bands at the right times. and yes you can mix LoTW and paper QSLs for most ARRL awards, but LoTW is so much faster and easier i'd really just push people to use that whenever possible. get an account set up if you havent already and start logging everything, you can always figure out what you're close to later.

yeah what he said, but also just pick whichever one sounds fun to you and go from there honestly. i started with WAS cause working all 50 states felt more tangible to me than trying to think about the whole world at once lol. got it confirmed in maybe 6 months working mostly 40m and 20m. the Azores contact you mentioned would count toward DXCC btw, CT8 i think is the prefix, so you've already started whether you knew it or not