so ive been licensed about 3 years now and mostly just ragchewed on 40m and did a few contests here and there but lately ive been getting really into DX and i think i want to actually chase DXCC properly. i have maybe 60-70 entities confirmed already just from casual operating but never really paid attention to lotw or qsl cards systematically.

my question is kind of broad i guess — for someone who wants to go after DXCC mixed as a starting point, is it better to focus on uploading everything to lotw first and see where i actually stand, or should i just start working everything i can and worry about the paperwork later. also does WAS and WAZ make sense to chase at the same time or is that just going to scatter my focus too much. i have a pretty decent station, ic-7300 and a trapped vertical that works okay but not great.

any advice from people who have been through this appreciated, im a little overwhelmed by the whole award credit system honestly

first thing id do is get everything uploaded to lotw and get your account sorted out. you might be closer to 100 than you think, especially if youve worked any DXpeditions over the years and they uploaded too. i was surprised when i finally did this — had like 87 confirmed without really trying.

as for chasing WAS and WAZ at the same time, honestly i wouldnt stress about it. a lot of the operating you do for DXCC will naturally tick boxes for WAZ since the zones overlap with a ton of popular DX countries. WAS is a slightly different animal because you need all 50 states which sounds easy but alaska and hawaii can be annoying to catch if youre not paying attention. i say just work everything, log everything, upload regularly, and let the credits sort themselves out. the arrl award system is actually pretty straightforward once you get used to the interface.

with a 7300 and a decent vertical you can absolutely get to 100 mixed, probably faster than you expect. just get on when the bands are open and learn to recognize which DX clusters spots are worth jumping on.

yeah what he said about lotw first is right. also dont throw away any paper qsl cards you have laying around because you can still submit those for credit if you ever need an entity that wont confirm on lotw. some of the rarer ones only do paper still.

i did DXCC, WAS, and WAZ kind of all at once without really planning it and it was fine, its not like you have to choose. the only thing that gets complicated is when you start going for endorsements or trying to do it on specific bands, thats where it gets kind of addictive and slightly expensive lol