ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and people keep talking about chasing DXCC and WAS and WAZ and i honestly have no idea how they all relate to each other or which one i should be going after first. like i understand the basic concept — work different entities or states or zones — but the whole credit submission thing has me totally lost.

do i need to upload every QSO to LoTW or is paper QSL still a thing for these? and does it matter which mode i used? someone at my club mentioned mixed vs phone vs digital endorsements and now my head is spinning. just trying to figure out what the actual process looks like for a normal person who doesnt have a big station or anything fancy. running an IC-7300 into a wire antenna in the backyard if that helps.

honestly WAS is probably the most satisfying place to start if youre in the US, just because the feedback loop is faster — you can knock out a bunch of states pretty quick on 40m especially during evening hours and it starts to feel real pretty fast. DXCC takes longer obviously but once you get the bug its hard to stop.

for credits — LoTW is the way to go now, most serious DX stations upload there and it just auto-matches when both sides upload the same QSO. paper QSL still counts for DXCC but honestly unless the DX station only does paper (which does still happen especially with some of the rarer ones) youll want to get comfortable with LoTW early. the ARRL has a tutorial and its a bit clunky to set up the first time with the certificates but once its running its basically automatic.

mode endorsements are separate achievements — like you can get basic DXCC on mixed, then separately on phone only or CW only or digital. dont worry about those yet just start working stuff and uploading logs, the credits will accumulate and youll start to see where you stand.

same boat as you like 6 months ago lol. what finally clicked for me was just starting to upload to LoTW and then checking my account after a few weeks and seeing the confirmed count go up on its own when the other guy uploads too. its weirdly motivating. WAZ was actually the one that got me hooked because working all 40 CQ zones felt like a puzzle and some zones are genuinely hard to find — zone 2 took me forever, kept missing the openings to northern Canada.

your 7300 and a wire will get you surprisingly far, dont let anyone tell you otherwise.