ok so i've been chasing DX for about a year now and i finally decided to actually look into applying for DXCC but honestly the whole thing is more confusing than i expected. like i have a bunch of QSLs from various entities and some are confirmed on LoTW and some are physical cards and i dont really understand how the mixing works when you go to apply.

also — and this might be a dumb question — but do WAZ and WAS credits carry over to anything or are they totally separate programs you have to chase independently? i've worked all 50 states at this point and someone at the club mentioned i might already qualify for WAS but i havent done anything about it. is it worth doing WAS before DXCC or does the order matter at all?

basically im just trying to figure out the most efficient way to go about this without submitting stuff wrong and having to redo it. any advice from people who've actually done the applications would be great

they're all totally separate programs so no the credits dont mix between them. DXCC is through ARRL and counts confirmed entities (countries basically), WAS is all 50 states, WAZ is the 40 CQ zones — completely different things you chase independently. the good news is if you're already on LoTW and have confirmations sitting there, the DXCC and WAS applications through LoTW are actually pretty painless, you basically just log in and it counts what you have automatically.

for mixing LoTW and paper QSLs on DXCC — yes you can do that, you just need to get your paper cards checked at a DXCC card checker event (a lot of hamfests have them) or mail them in. the LoTW confirmations count separately and they add together toward your total. i'd honestly just get on LoTW first and see where you stand, you might be closer to 100 entities than you think if you've been active for a year.

and yeah do WAS if you have it, its a nice milestone and the certificate looks good on the wall. order doesnt matter at all.

same boat as you were like 6 months ago haha. what finally clicked for me was realizing LoTW just does the counting for you once your logs are uploaded, so i'd start there before worrying about paper cards. i was surprised how many entities i already had confirmed just sitting in my log that i hadnt paid attention to. ended up being like 87 toward DXCC which i had no idea about.

WAZ took me way longer than WAS btw, some of those zones are really hard to get on certain bands. Zone 26 and some of the pacific zones were a pain. just something to be aware of if you go down that rabbit hole, its a fun one though