so ive been licensed about three years now and been doing a lot of HF but mostly just ragchewing and some contests here and there. recently i started actually logging with the intent of going for DXCC and i guess i just assumed i understood how the credits worked but now that im sitting here with like 87 confirmed entities i'm realizing i dont fully get the process.

like, do i need paper QSLs for all of them or can i just submit everything through LoTW and call it a day? i have maybe 40 or so confirmed on LoTW already but a lot of my older contacts especially some of the DX stations just never uploaded. and what about WAS — is that totally separate from DXCC or do some contacts count toward both at the same time if theyre stateside contacts?

also someone at the club mentioned WAZ and i had to pretend i knew what they were talking about lol. is that one actually worth chasing or is it kind of a stepping stone thing people do before DXCC? genuinely not sure where to focus my energy. been working 20m mostly, some 17m when the band cooperates.

LoTW is absolutely the way to go for DXCC credits these days, you dont need paper cards unless a station never uploaded to LoTW which does happen with some of the rarer ones. the ARRL will accept LoTW confirmations directly when you apply so just make sure your own logs are uploaded and matched up. for the ones that arent confirmed digitally you'll need either a paper card or sometimes a third party bureau card, just depends.

WAS and DXCC are completely separate awards but yeah a contact with say a W5 station counts toward WAS while a contact with a VP9 counts toward DXCC. stateside contacts dont help your DXCC total unless its something like KH6 or KL7 which are separate entities. WAZ is CQ magazine's award, 40 zones worldwide, totally different organization and tracking system. honestly a lot of guys chase all three simultaneously once they get into it, your log is your log, just submit to the right place. WAZ is fun, some of the zones are genuinely hard to work, especially zone 23 and parts of Asia.

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, just hit 102 confirmed last month and the whole credit system confused me for a while too. one thing that helped me was just uploading everything to LoTW first and letting it sort out what was matched, then i could see exactly where my gaps were. Club Log also has a good tool that shows you which entities youve worked but dont have confirmed yet, that was kind of eye opening for me because i had worked a bunch of stuff that just never got confirmed.

the paper QSL route is slower but sometimes thats the only option, i sent a bunch through the bureau and waited like eight months but eventually got the cards back. depends how patient you are i guess.