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!
You’ll find a very high rate of RTTY QSL’s are now made through LOTW. That’s because most folks doing RTTY are using a computer to generate the QSO, so integrating computer logging and LOTW QSLing is almost a given.
73
Gary, K2GW
Hi Gary, that is certainly what I’ve found — right at 70 countries confirmed on Logbook of the World in my first three months of RTTY operation. Furthermore, the RTTY operators are uploading their logs almost immediately after the contests resulting in hundreds of confirmations within a few days. This has been in sharp contrast to my experience with CW contests, where everyone is also using computers, but the log upload rate is much slower and for some operators not at all.
73, Jim, K5ND