ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about chasing DX and getting credits toward different awards but honestly the whole thing is kind of overwhelming. like i understand the basic idea — you work stations in different countries or states or zones or whatever and you submit logs and eventually get a certificate. but theres so many different ones and i dont really know where to start or what makes the most sense for someone at my level.

right now i have a decent HF setup, a Yaesu FT-891 running into a G5RV up about 30 feet, nothing fancy. ive been making contacts pretty regularly on 20 and 40m and im logging everything in WSJT-X plus some SSB. some of my contacts are definitely outside the US. i just havent been doing anything intentional about chasing specific entities or zones.

so my question is basically — should i just pick one award and focus on it, or does working toward one naturally help with the others? and is DXCC even realistic for someone who isnt running big power and a beam? i see guys on here talking about 300 confirmed entities and i feel like thats a different universe from where i am lol

honestly the good news is working toward any of them kind of overlaps naturally. every state contact counts toward WAS, every zone toward WAZ, and every DXCC entity toward DXCC — so if you're just logging contacts and being intentional about who you're working you'll be building credits for all three at the same time without really trying.

for someone starting out id probably say WAS is the most approachable just because working all 50 states is very doable even with modest equipment, and you'll get a feel for chasing and confirming via LoTW before the stakes feel as high. DXCC is absolutely not out of reach with a G5RV and 100 watts though — FT8 has kind of changed everything for guys without big antennas. you can work a lot of rare stuff on digital modes that you'd never crack a pileup on with 100w SSB. i was at like 180 entities before i ever ran more than 100 watts, all wire antennas in a suburban lot.

just make sure you're uploading everything to Logbook of the World. that's the main thing. get in the habit now and you'll thank yourself later.

same boat as you not too long ago, i just started working whatever sounded interesting and then checked the awards page after a few months and realized i was already like 60% of the way to WAS without even trying lol. the ARRL website has a tool where you can check your LoTW log against award requirements which is kinda fun to poke around in. WAZ took me a little longer just because some of the zones dont come up as often on the bands i was using but zone 3 and the common ones pile up fast.

dont stress too much about it, honestly half the fun is when you suddenly realize you need like Wyoming and some weird Pacific zone and you start actually hunting for those specific contacts. thats when it gets addictive