so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about DXCC and WAS and WAZ and honestly i dont fully understand the difference or which one makes sense to go after first. like i get that DXCC is working 100 countries and WAS is all 50 states but what even is WAZ? someone at the club mentioned it last week and i kind of nodded like i knew what they were talking about but i really didnt lol

also how does the whole credits thing work — do i need paper QSL cards or is LoTW enough now? i've been pretty good about uploading everything to LoTW since i got on air but i only have like 23 confirmed entities so far. running 100w into a dipole in the backyard if that matters

not sure where to even start with this stuff, any help appreciated

WAZ is Worked All Zones — the world is divided into 40 CQ zones and you need to work one station from each zone. it's actually a really fun one to chase because some zones are pretty rare and you have to actually think about propagation and timing to get them all, not just wait for a big DX station to show up on a pile-up

as for which one first, honestly just work whatever sounds good on the bands and let the awards sort of chase themselves. most people end up with decent progress on WAS pretty quickly because US stations are everywhere, and DXCC builds up faster than you'd expect especially if you hit the low bands during good conditions. LoTW is definitely accepted for all three, you dont need paper cards unless you really want them or for specific rare entities that only confirm via paper

23 entities in 8 months on 100w and a dipole is actually pretty solid, keep at it

oh man i was in the exact same spot like two years ago, the whole award ecosystem is kind of overwhelming at first. what clicked for me was just picking one and focusing on it — i went for WAS first because honestly getting all 50 states felt more achievable when i was starting out and the contacts are just more frequent so you get more practice with the whole logging and confirming workflow before you're deep in the DXCC rabbit hole

one thing nobody told me early on — make sure your LoTW account is set up with the right call sign and dates because if you ever get a QSL uploaded that doesnt match your license period it wont count and that's just annoying to sort out later. also the ARRL has a pretty decent page explaining the DXCC rules, worth reading even if some of it is a bit dense