so ive been licensed about 8 months now (general class) and i keep hearing people talk about chasing DXCC and WAS and WAZ and honestly im not totally sure i understand what the difference even is or how the whole credit system works. like i get that DXCC is countries basically, and WAS is all 50 states, but WAZ i had to look up and its zones? there are 40 of them apparently?

anyway i started keeping a log obviously but i wasnt really paying attention to what entities i was working for the first few months so i probably missed confirming some stuff properly. does it matter if i have the QSO in my log but no QSL card or LoTW confirmation? does that count for anything or is it basically worthless toward an award without the confirmation?

also is there like a recommended order people usually go after these in, or does it just depend on what bands youre active on and what your setup is. im running 100w into a dipole at about 30 feet if that matters. just trying to figure out where to focus my energy here because chasing everything at once seems overwhelming

ok so the short answer on your log question - no, unconfirmed QSOs dont count toward any of the major awards. you need either a paper QSL card or a LoTW match, and for DXCC specifically the ARRL is pretty strict about it. eQSL with the ARRL authenticated stamp works for some awards but not DXCC itself so watch out for that confusion, a lot of new folks get burned by it.

as for order, honestly most people i know started with WAS because its more reachable early on, you dont need huge propagation windows to work all 50 states with 100w and a dipole, just patience. DXCC gets more addictive once you start seeing the numbers climb though, i remember hitting 100 confirmed and thinking id be done but then you just... keep going. the zones for WAZ kind of fill in naturally as you chase the other two so it sort of takes care of itself over time. get on LoTW right away if you havent already, its the best thing you can do for yourself right now because a lot of stations upload there and your confirmations will start accumulating without you having to chase paper cards.

yeah what he said about LoTW is spot on. i put off setting it up for like 6 months and then kicked myself because i lost credit for probably 40 or 50 contacts that the other stations had already uploaded. the certificate stuff to get registered is kind of annoying but just do it, worth every minute.

also dont sleep on ClubLog if you work a lot of DX, some expeditions upload there and you can see your credit in real time which is weirdly motivating. my two cents anyway