ok so ive been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about chasing DXCC and WAS and WAZ and honestly i thought i had a handle on it but the more i read the more confused i get. like i understand DXCC is working 100 countries (entities i guess?) but then someone on the repeater told me not all contacts count the same way depending on band and mode and now my head is spinning.

i worked a guy in Japan last week on 20m SSB and i was pretty excited about that, but now im wondering if i need to be logging stuff differently or submitting something somewhere or what. do you have to use LoTW for all of this or can you still do paper QSLs? and is there like a priority order people usually go after these awards or do most people just pick one and focus on it

also does starting DXCC automatically mean youre working toward WAS at the same time or are those tracked completely separately. sorry if these are dumb questions im just trying to figure out where to even start

not dumb questions at all, this stuff genuinely takes a while to sort out. so the short version is yes they're tracked separately — DXCC is ARRL's award for working 100 DXCC entities (which is close to but not exactly the same as countries, some islands and territories count separately), WAS is Worked All States so all 50 US states, and WAZ is Worked All Zones which is the CQ magazine award for all 40 CQ zones worldwide. completely different organizations even, ARRL runs DXCC and WAS, CQ runs WAZ.

for most people starting out WAS is actually the more achievable near term goal especially if youre in the US, you can knock that out in a few months of decent operating on 40m and 20m. DXCC takes longer but its very doable once you get the hang of band openings and start recognizing which prefixes are which entities.

LoTW is really the way to go for getting credits confirmed, paper QSLs still work but they take forever and cost money. that Japan contact definitely counts for DXCC if you get it confirmed. i'd get yourself set up on LoTW sooner rather than later and just let the confirmations pile up — you might be closer than you think already

yeah what he said about LoTW, seriously just get that set up. the certificate process can feel intimidating at first but you basically do it once and then its just uploading logs. i wasted like a year doing paper QSLs before i switched over and i wish i hadnt.

one thing worth mentioning — each award can also be earned per band and per mode once you have the basics. so like you can have DXCC on 20m SSB, and separately on 40m, and separately on CW, and so on. some people get really deep into chasing the band endorsements and it basically becomes a whole other hobby inside the hobby. i only mention it because once you start looking at your log with that lens you realize every contact is potentially useful for something. that Japan QSO you made counts toward your 20m mixed DXCC tally right now even if you dont know it yet