so ive been chasing DX for about a year now and i keep hearing people talk about DXCC, WAS, WAZ and i think i have a decent idea what they are but the actual mechanics of getting the credits confirmed is where im totally lost. like i have like 40 something entities worked in my log but i have no idea what percentage of those are actually confirmed vs just worked.

from what i understand you need either a physical QSL card or LoTW confirmation, is that right? and do paper QSLs still count for DXCC or has the ARRL basically moved everything to LoTW now? i sent out a bunch of cards through the bureau last spring and i dont think ive gotten a single one back yet. is that normal or did i do something wrong

also is WAS separate from DXCC entirely, like do you apply for those separately and keep track of them in different logs or does something like HAMLOG or DXkeeper handle all of that automatically. sorry if this is a really basic question, i just feel like every time i look this up i get answers from 2009 and i cant tell whats still accurate

yeah paper QSLs absolutely still count for DXCC, you just have to get them checked at an ARRL card checking session or mail them in directly, its just slower and more of a hassle than LoTW. the bureau can take a really long time, like 6 months to over a year for some countries, thats totally normal unfortunately. some rarer entities wont even respond at all so LoTW is way better when the other station uploads.

WAS and DXCC are completely separate awards with separate applications, yeah. WAS is all 50 states, WAZ is the 40 CQ zones. DXKeeper does track all of this if you set it up right and its connected to LoTW — it'll show you confirmed vs worked for each award category which is really handy. i'd honestly just focus on getting your LoTW account set up properly first if you havent already, that'll make everything a lot clearer once you can see whats actually confirmed in there

im in basically the same boat as you, started last year and the whole award credit thing was really confusing at first. one thing that helped me was just signing into LoTW and looking at the award tracking section, it kind of shows you where you stand for DXCC and WAS at least. still wrapping my head around WAZ zones honestly, i keep confusing zones with continents lol