so ive been licensed about 14 months now and just got my first 100 confirmed entities on lotw which i know isnt that many compared to some of you guys but im pretty excited about it. anyway i went to apply for the basic DXCC award and the whole credit system on the arrl site is kind of confusing me. like i have some qsls in hand from cards i sent out and got back, and then a bunch of lotw confirmations, and i dont totally understand if i submit both or just one or what the process is. also someone in my local club mentioned something about mixed vs phone vs cw credits being separate which i wasnt aware of at all. do those count toward the same 100 or is it like separate awards you have to apply for separately. i feel like ive been operating without really understanding what im working toward if that makes sense. also started hearing people talk about WAS and WAZ and now im wondering if i should be chasing those at the same time or focus on one thing. sorry for the ramble, just a lot of questions at once

congrats on the 100 confirmed, that's actually a solid milestone for 14 months in. okay so the way DXCC works is you apply through the arrl and you can use a combination of lotw confirmations and paper qsl cards. when you submit you basically upload your lotw credits and then for the paper cards you either bring them to a checkpoint or an arrl card checker who can verify them. the mixed mode award counts any mode so your phone and cw and digital all pool together toward that 100 entity count. then if you want DXCC Phone specifically or DXCC CW that's a separate endorsement and you need 100 confirmed on that mode alone. most people start with mixed and then work toward the mode specific ones later as they build up more contacts.

as for WAS and WAZ, yeah you can absolutely chase them at the same time, they're totally separate awards. WAS is 50 states confirmed, WAZ is 40 CQ zones which can actually be tricky because some zones are really hard to work from north america. i'd say log everything and let the credits sort themselves out. every qso you make potentially counts toward multiple things at once which is one of the things that makes award chasing kind of addictive honestly.

im kind of in the same boat as you, been at it about 2 years and DXCC has been my main focus. one thing that helped me was just making sure i upload to lotw after every session, even if im just doing casual operating. you never know when someone confirms and suddenly you've got a new entity. the WAZ thing took me by surprise too, zone 23 and some of the central asian zones are way harder than i expected. i've worked like 170 something entities now but still missing a few zones which is frustrating