ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about DXCC and WAS and WAZ and honestly i cant figure out which one makes the most sense to start working toward. like i understand the basics — DXCC is 100 countries, WAS is all 50 states, WAZ is 40 zones — but i dont know which one is actually achievable for someone who is still pretty new and running maybe 100 watts into a dipole in the attic.

i did manage to work about 23 states on 40m last weekend during a contest which felt pretty good, and ive worked maybe 15 or 20 DXCC entities since i got my general. so i guess im making some progress but i dont even know if those contacts count toward anything since i wasnt thinking about awards when i made them. do i have to specifically log them a certain way or submit something before they count? and does it cost money every time you submit credits?

also someone mentioned lotw and i set it up but i honestly dont fully understand how it works with the awards tracking. any help appreciated, this stuff is kind of overwhelming when you first start digging into it

WAS is probably the most satisfying one to start with if you're in the US, just because you can knock out a big chunk of it during a single decent contest weekend. sounds like you're already almost halfway there without even trying. the contacts you've already made absolutely count as long as you have them in your log — lotw retroactively applies everything once you upload your adif. so go back and upload all your logs if you havent already, you might be surprised how many credits you already have sitting there.

the cost thing is a bit confusing at first. lotw itself is free to use for logging and matching, you only pay when you actually apply for the award certificate. DXCC has a fee per entity credit when you apply, WAS I think is just a one time thing when you submit the application. none of it is crazy expensive but it adds up if you're chasing endorsements constantly.

honestly my advice — dont overthink it. just work stuff and upload to lotw consistently, the credits accumulate on their own and one day you'll look and realize you're at 87 entities or 46 states and then it gets fun. the chasing is half the point anyway.

same boat as you were a few months ago lol. i just focused on WAS first because it felt more manageable and i was mostly on 40m anyway. got it confirmed on lotw in about 5 months, which i was pretty happy with. DXCC took longer but once you hit like 50 entities it kind of gets addictive and you start actually paying attention to which zones you're missing for WAZ too. they all kind of overlap once you get going