so ive been licensed about 8 months now and mostly just done local stuff and some SSB ragchewing but lately ive been getting into working DX and i think i want to actually go for DXCC at some point. i worked a few entities already — japan, germany, some caribean station i cant remember which island — and i guess ive just been logging without really thinking about it.

my question is basically how does this whole thing work in terms of submitting credits. do i need paper QSLs for everything or is lotw the way to go now? i keep hearing people say lotw but then i also see guys talking about chasing paper cards and i dont really know which route makes more sense when youre just starting out. also is there a difference between how DXCC counts things vs WAS or WAZ, like are they all tracked separately through the ARRL or what

sorry if this is a basic question, just trying to wrap my head around the whole awards ecosystem i guess

not a basic question at all, its actually kind of a rabbit hole once you get into it. short answer — yes get on lotw as soon as you can if you havent already. the vast majority of serious DX operators upload to lotw and your confirmed QSOs there count directly toward DXCC credits without needing to mail anything in. paper QSLs still work and some guys love the cards for the wall but lotw is really where the action is for actually submitting toward the award.

and yes, DXCC, WAS and WAZ are all tracked separately. DXCC is the big one most people chase first — 100 confirmed entities and you get the basic certificate, then you can keep going for endorsements as you work more. WAS is all 50 US states which sounds easy but some of those low population states can take a while on certain bands. WAZ is the 40 CQ zones thing, that one has a different flavor to it. they're all through ARRL except WAZ which is a CQ Magazine award. easy to get confused at first but it clicks after a while.

keep logging everything, even stuff you arent sure about. you'll thank yourself later

yeah what he said about lotw. also just wanted to add — dont stress too much about the caribbean entity you worked, if you check your log you should have the callsign and you can usually figure out the entity from that. clublog has a really good lookup tool and there are a few others. once you get into dxcc chasing you start to recognize callsign prefixes pretty quickly anyway, its kind of fun

i chased DXCC for like two years before i finally submitted and honestly half the fun was just the hunt. some entities are super easy and some you wait months for a good opening. welcome to the addiction i guess