Just received the stickers to upgrade my DXCC CW certificate for 200 countries. I took a slightly different route to get to the 200 county level. I had about 170 countries on Logbook of the World and another 30 QSL cards that didn’t show up there. So I had the cards checked by a DXCC card checker after entering them all via the online DXCC system that ARRL has put in place. When that check sheet was reviewed by the DXCC staff at ARRL, I got credit for all the QSL cards. Then I placed my application with the additional QSO’s that were required to get to 200. That application was then approved within about 24 hours. A couple of weeks later, the stickers arrived in the mail for my CW and Mixed certificates.

All in all, it’s a very slick system that the ARRL has put in place to integrate paper QSL card processing with the Logbook of the World processing. I will note that this is probably the extent of my DXCC pursuit on CW. My 100 watts and verticals have just about reached their limits. Even so, I am starting all over on RTTY. This time I’m pursuing not only Logbook of the World but also paper QSL cards so that I can qualify for the CQ DX RTTY Award. Right now I’m at 60 countries via LoTW and have about 20 cards that have arrived. It might take me a while to collect the needed 100 cards!

I just took advantage of the link between CQ and the Logbook of the World to apply for the CQ WPX CW Award. It requires 300 different prefixes and Logbook of the World reveals that I’ve confirmed 305 prefixes. This really shows the value of LoTW — I had no idea and preparing the list and cards for the card checker would have been quite an effort.

Thank you LoTW for making the CQ WPX Award so much more accessible!

My other projects for the Christmas holidays are to pull together my QSL cards for the next step with the CQ DX Award as well as DXCC. I now have 200 countries confirmed by QSL cards, but only 178 by LoTW. My current awards are for 150 countries. So I need to have the cards checked by the CQ DX Award card checker and also enter my cards in the LoTW system followed by card checking by the DXCC card checker. As you can see, this is a bit simpler than the WPX awards, but not by much. Moreover, I’m currently just working on the country total. I haven’t yet started to look at band endorsements. Plus, all my contacts, save a couple, are on CW. So no mode endorsements.

I hope that you all are making good progress toward your own goals with the CQ awards and DXCC.

73, Jim, K5ND