ok so i've been licensed about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about chasing DXCC and WAS and WAZ and honestly i'm starting to lose track of what's what. like are these completely different awards with different rules or do some of the contacts count toward multiple things at once?

i've been logging everything in WSJT-X and uploading to LoTW which i think is the right move but i honestly don't know if all my contacts are being credited properly. i've worked 34 states so far and a bunch of DX but i haven't really been paying attention to which entities count toward what. someone at my club mentioned i might already qualify for something but i wasn't sure what they meant.

also do you have to apply separately for each award or is there some way to track it all in one place? i saw something about ARRL's logbook but im not sure if it automatically tells you when you qualify or if you have to go apply manually. any help appreciated, this award stuff is way more complicated than i expected when i first got into HF

yeah they're totally separate awards but your contacts can absolutely count toward multiple ones at the same time which is the nice part. DXCC is about working 100 confirmed DXCC entities (countries basically, though its more complicated than just countries), WAS is all 50 US states, and WAZ is the 40 CQ zones which are geographic regions that cover the whole world. completely different criteria but a single QSO with say a station in Alaska counts toward WAS and could also count toward DXCC if you need Alaska as an entity, and also zone 1 for WAZ. so yeah, log everything and upload everything to LoTW and you're doing it right.

LoTW doesn't really ping you when you qualify, you kinda have to check yourself or use something like Club Log which has really nice tracking tools. a lot of people use both honestly. and yes you apply separately for each award, there's a fee involved for the ARRL ones. but with 34 states already you're well on your way to WAS, just keep going

i was in the exact same spot like two years ago lol. what helped me was just picking one to focus on first - i went after WAS because it felt more achievable starting out and working all 50 states taught me a lot about propagation and when to be on what band. once i had that i started actually understanding how the DX stuff worked. the dx entities thing kind of clicked better once i had some experience under my belt. also club log is your friend, seriously just make an account and sync your log, it shows you exactly where you stand on DXCC at least