Sarah Williams

yeah you do need to apply to get the actual award credit recognized officially, the lotw confirmations dont just automatically become DXCC credits until you submit an application through arrl. but heres the good news — once you apply and pay the fee, all your current lotw confirmations get counted at once so those 60 will all be reviewed together. after that you just apply for updates as you work new ones.
and yes WAS and WAZ are totally separate awards with separate applications, but the same lotw QSOs can count toward multiple awards simultaneously, you dont rework anything. like if you work a station in Texas it can count toward WAS for Texas AND if it was the right band/mode it might count toward a specific WAZ zone. lotw is smart enough to track it all per award type once you submit for each one separately.
for logging software honestly just try Log4OM or DXKeeper, both free and both have really solid award tracking built in. DXKeeper in particular shows you exactly where you stand on DXCC, WAS, WAZ all at once and syncs with lotw. took me a while to set it up but once it was going i was hooked

yeah the D710 absolutely can get stuck on a manually entered position if you ever punched in coordinates at some point — there's a setting in the menu where it prioritizes the internal stored position over the GPS feed. dig into the APRS menu and look for the position input method setting, make sure its set to GPS and not manual. i've seen this trip people up more than once, the radio just happily beaconing wrong coords for months before anyone notices.
also worth checking if the GPS puck has a good sky view. 3 miles off sounds like more than just weak signal drift though, that sounds like it might actually be a datum issue or the radio is pulling stale data. what does the GPS indicator on the display show, is it solid or flashing?

did my first EME qso about two years ago with a 4x9el array and an old beko amp pushing around 600w. took me probably three months of failed attempts before i actually completed a contact and even then the other guy was running like 4x20el with a kw so he was doing most of the heavy lifting lol. the moon window thing catches people off guard too, you cant just point at the moon anytime, you need it above the horizon for both stations at the same time which depending on where you both are might only be a couple hours. i use WA4NJP's EME planner and the stuff built into WSJT to figure out windows. honestly the community is really friendly about it, there are skeds you can arrange through the moon-net reflector where big gun stations will specifically try to work smaller setups, thats probably how id suggest getting your first contact rather than just calling CQ into the void

i havent done the TCXO on mine yet but this thread is making me think about it. been putting it off because i kept telling myself the drift wasnt bad enough to justify cracking the case open. but FT8 season is coming up and i already know its gonna bug me again.
one thing i did do that was totally worth it was the external speaker upgrade, which i know isnt really a mod to the radio itself but running it through a decent 8 ohm speaker instead of the built in one changed the audio enough that i actually enjoy listening to SSB again. the stock speaker in the 7300 is honestly pretty bad for the price of the radio. small thing but it made daily use way better.

the ICS stuff is what trips up most new folks honestly. knowing the forms is one thing but actually fitting into the incident command structure and understanding who you report to and how information flows, that clicks more once youre actually in the room. just pay attention to who the IC is and follow your EC's lead and you'll be fine for a first drill.
baofeng is fine, dont let anyone tell you otherwise for basic VHF/UHF ARES work. i used one for two years before upgrading.

dont stress too much about it, the alert is definitely just a courtesy thing — not required at all. plenty of people do unplanned activations and just self spot from the summit using the sotawatch app or get someone else to spot them. the 4 contacts do need to be 4 different callsigns though, same person on a different band doesnt count as two QSOs toward your total. at least thats how i've always understood it and my logs have gone through fine.
the ft-818 and a linked dipole is a solid setup for a 2 pointer, honestly you'll probably have a pile up within the first few minutes if you self spot. 20m is hit or miss lately but id also have 40m ready, shorter dipole legs and all that. good luck this weekend, the first activation is always a bit chaotic but in a fun way. just remember to stay in the activation zone and youre golden.

so ive been licensed for about 8 months now and i mostly do HF, some 40m and 20m. i get that you're supposed to use phonetics when there's interference or the other station asks you to say again but i feel like half the time people just rattle off their callsign normally and half the time they spell it out phonetically and i cant really figure out the pattern
like is there an actual rule about when you use NATO phonetics vs just saying the letters? and does it matter which phonetics you use? i heard some guys using different words than the standard ones, like they'd say something other than Foxtrot for F. is that just a preference thing or are those wrong technically
also on SSB specifically it seems like people sometimes do a weird mix where they say their callsign once fast and then spell it out phonetically if asked. is that the right way to do it or am i overthinking this

honestly for most people it ends up being LoTW as the main one because of DXCC credit, and eQSL kind of as a secondary thing — some folks won't even bother with eQSL at all but I like it because it's more social, you can see the card designs people make and it feels a bit more like the old paper card experience just digital. The upload workflow doesnt have to be complicated, most logging software like Log4OM or WSJT-X will let you batch upload to both without too much fuss once you get it set up the first time.
For physical cards the bureau is slower but way cheaper if you're doing a lot of DX — you basically send a batch of cards to your national QSL bureau and they sort and forward them, takes months sometimes but you arent paying individual postage. For stateside contacts a lot of people just mail directly. Printing your own is absolutely worth it, you can do a nice run for pretty cheap and having your own card to send out feels good. I'd say dont overthink it, upload to LoTW after every session, toss stuff into eQSL too, and send paper cards when someone specifically asks or when you work something special.

nice work getting it done. i did a POTA activation at a state park few weeks ago and even that with a flat open field took me forever to get sorted. kept forgetting where i put things in the bag lol. i think having a dedicated activations bag where everything has a spot helps, now i keep a little checklist taped inside the top lid of my pack so i dont forget the stupid little things like the adapter for my key or whatever