so ive been chasing DX for about two years now and just crossed 100 confirmed on LoTW which was exciting but now im trying to figure out how the actual DXCC award submission works and its honestly more confusing than i expected

like i get that you need 100 confirmed entities but do ALL of them need to be on LoTW or can you mix LoTW with paper QSLs? i have a bunch of cards from older contacts that i never bothered uploading anywhere and i wasnt sure if those would count toward the same total or if its like two separate pools of credit

also i saw something about WAS and WAZ and i kind of want to chase those at the same time while im already logging contacts — is that a smart way to do it or does it just turn into a mess trying to track everything at once. i use WSJT-X and Ham Radio Deluxe so logging isnt really the problem its more the award side of things i dont fully understand yet

any advice from people whove actually gone through the submission process would be great, im not in a huge rush just want to make sure im not wasting confirmations or doing double work

yeah you can absolutely mix LoTW and paper QSLs for DXCC, the ARRL accepts both. when you do your online submission through their website you upload your LoTW credits and then for any paper cards you either mail them in or take them to an accredited card checker at a hamfest — a lot of people dont realize the card checker thing is actually way more convenient than mailing a big stack of cards and hoping they come back

the way it works is LoTW credits get applied to your account automatically once ARRL processes them and then paper cards just get added on top of that so yeah its one combined total not two separate things. just make sure your paper cards have all the right info on them, ive seen people get cards rejected because the date or band wasnt clear enough

as for chasing WAS and WAZ at the same time, honestly its not that bad. WAS is all 50 states which if youre already on FT8 you can knock out pretty quickly, and WAZ is the 40 CQ zones which takes a bit more patience depending on where you are geographically. just make sure LoTW is set up properly and most of it tracks itself

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, just hit 120 confirmed entities on LoTW last month and been putting off figuring out the submission stuff because it seemed complicated. good to know about the mixed QSL thing, i have probably 30 or 40 paper cards sitting in a shoebox that i never did anything with

one thing i did figure out is that clublog is pretty handy for tracking which entities youve worked vs confirmed, it shows you the gaps and you can sort of plan what to chase next. not sure if you already use it but its free and syncs with LoTW