so ive been licensed for about 6 years now and mostly just did local nets and some casual HF but this past winter i kind of fell down the rabbit hole of DX chasing and now i cant stop checking clublog every morning like some kind of addict

anyway i'm trying to wrap my head around how DXCC actually works in practice. i understand the basic concept — 100 confirmed entities — but what i'm fuzzy on is the difference between what counts as a confirmed contact versus what i submit to the ARRL. like i have a bunch of QSOs in LoTW that show confirmed but i havent actually applied for the award yet. do those credits just sit there waiting or do i need to do something to activate them or whatever the right term is

also someone at the club mentioned WAS and WAZ in the same breath and i wasnt totally sure if those are tracked separately or if there's some overlap. i know WAS is states and WAZ is zones but do they share the same log or is it totally different applications and fees

sorry if these are obvious questions. i tried reading the ARRL award pages but honestly they're kind of dense and i learn better from people who've actually done it

not dumb questions at all, this stuff is genuinely confusing the first time through

so for DXCC — yes those LoTW confirmations are just sitting there accumulating and thats actually fine. when you're ready to apply you go into your ARRL account and there's a section for DXCC awards where you can submit. it basically pulls your LoTW confirmations and you pay the one time application fee and then after that adding new band/mode endorsements is pretty cheap. the credits dont expire or anything so no rush

WAS and WAZ are totally separate things though. WAZ is run by CQ Magazine not ARRL so it's a completely different system, different log submission, different fees. some guys chase all three simultaneously which honestly sounds exhausting but once you get the bug you kind of do. i'd focus on DXCC first since you're already building confirmed QSOs in LoTW, get that one rolling and then see how you feel about adding WAZ to the mix

one thing that tripped me up early on — make sure the other station is also uploading to LoTW because a QSO confirmed only on QRZ or eQSL doesn't count toward DXCC the same way. LoTW confirmations are what the ARRL wants for the online system

im basically in the same boat as you, started taking DXCC seriously maybe 8 months ago and yeah clublog is kind of a daily ritual now lol. the thing that helped me most was just joining a DX club because people there are constantly talking about who's uploading to LoTW and which expeditions are good for confirmations and stuff like that

also just a heads up — some rarer entities take forever to get confirmed in LoTW if they ever do at all. i've got a few QSOs with stuff that probably wont ever confirm electronically so eventually i might have to go the paper QSL route for those which is kind of a whole other thing to figure out