okay so ive been chasing DX for about a year now and i finally started looking seriously at applying for DXCC and honestly the whole process is a bit confusing to me. like i have a bunch of QSOs confirmed through LoTW which i thought was the main thing but then someone at my club meeting said you still need physical QSL cards for some situations and i wasnt sure if that was outdated info or still current.

also i keep seeing people talk about WAS and WAZ at the same time as DXCC like theyre all one big thing but they seem like totally separate awards with different rules? i managed to work all 50 states already i think but i never actually submitted anything because i didnt know i had to actively apply. does the log just... automatically qualify me or do i have to do something with it

and the other thing is mixed mode — does a SSB contact to Wyoming count separately from a digital contact to Wyoming for WAS purposes or is it one entity regardless of mode. sorry for all the questions at once im just trying to figure out where to even start with this stuff

so the short answer is no, nothing happens automatically, you gotta actually submit and pay the application fee through the ARRL's website. for DXCC if you have LoTW confirmations that's totally fine, you dont need paper cards at all — LoTW credits are actually preferred now and the whole process is way smoother than it used to be. back in the day you had to mail in cards and get them checked at a hamfest or whatever but now you just log into your ARRL account and it tallies your LoTW confirmed entities and you submit from there.

WAS and WAZ are definitely separate awards with their own rules, they just get talked about together because a lot of DXers chase all three. WAS is all 50 states confirmed, WAZ is all 40 CQ zones, and DXCC is 100 confirmed entities. each one has its own mixed/phone/CW/digital endorsement options too so yeah working Wyoming on SSB and then on FT8 can get you credit toward the different mode endorsements — they dont count as the same contact for endorsement purposes even though it's the same state.

honestly just make an ARRL account if you havent and look at your LoTW stats, it'll show you what you already have credited and you might be closer than you think

i was in the exact same boat like 8 months ago, dont feel bad. the award stuff is weirdly complicated for something thats supposed to be fun lol. one thing i'll add is that for WAS specifically i just submitted mine online through LoTW and it was actually pretty painless once i figured out where the form was buried on the ARRL site. took a couple weeks to get the certificate and i was honestly surprised how fast it went.

the mode endorsement thing tripped me up too at first. i did mixed WAS first just to get the basic award and then went back and worked the remaining states i needed on digital to get that endorsement added later. you can kind of build on it over time which is nice, you dont have to do it all at once