so ive been licensed about 3 years now and mostly just done local stuff, some nets, a bit of contesting here and there but nothing serious. lately ive been getting really into DX and somebody at the club mentioned DXCC and now i cant stop thinking about it. i think i have maybe 40 or 50 entities already confirmed just from casual operating but i never really tracked it properly so honestly i dont know for sure.

my question is basically — is there a smart way to start chasing this more intentionally? like should i be focusing on getting the easy ones locked down first on multiple bands, or just grab whatever i can whenever propagation lets me. also how does the whole LoTW thing work for credit submission, i have an account but ive never actually submitted anything for an award. do i need to wait until i hit 100 confirmed or can i kind of track progress along the way. any advice appreciated, feels like theres a whole side to this hobby i havent explored yet

welcome to the rabbit hole, fair warning it never really ends lol. first thing id do is go through all your old logs and upload everything to LoTW if you havent already, you might be surprised how many entities you already have confirmed without realizing it. a lot of people are on LoTW now so matches tend to come back pretty quick especially for more common entities.

for the actual chasing strategy, most people say knock out the easy ones on 20m and 17m first just to build up the count, then worry about band endorsements and the harder stuff later. there are entities you can work almost any day of the week if you know where to look — DX summit and the DX maps are your friends, just watch the spots and be ready to jump on stuff. the real fun starts when you start getting into the rarer ones and you have to plan around propagation windows and sometimes set an alarm at 3am to catch a short opening. as for submitting, you dont have to wait for 100, the tracking on the ARRL site shows your progress as QSLs match up, its kind of addictive watching the number go up honestly

oh also dont forget WAS while youre at it — if youre gonna be logging seriously anyway you might as well chase states at the same time, its not that much extra effort and a lot of people knock out WAS before DXCC just because US stations are easier to work consistently. WAZ too eventually but that one takes a little more patience depending on your location and antennas. i did my WAS mostly on 40m which worked out well. just keep logging everything even if it seems boring, past-me wishes he had better records from the early days