Sep 14, 2026 · Steve Berry, N1EZ
Ask an operator how many DXCC entities they have and you'll get one number. But there are really three, they are rarely the same, and the differences between them decide whether it's worth filling in an application.
You have entities you have worked. You have entities that are confirmed — and it matters a great deal who confirmed them. And you have entities ARRL has actually granted you credit for, which is the only number that appears on a certificate.
DxQSO now shows all three together, because it can read the record of what ARRL has granted. (Here is why we track awards at all, when your logger already does.) Before anything else, let me be clear about where that sits: this is LoTW®'s own report. ARRL publishes it, documents it for developers, and any software can request it — including, quite possibly, the logging program you already use. We didn't discover it and we're not claiming to be the only ones who can read it. What follows is what the three numbers mean, why the gap between them is usually bigger than people expect, and what DxQSO does with it.
You made the contact and logged it. That's it. Your log is the only evidence, and no award program will take your word for it. This is almost always the biggest of the three numbers, and it's the one most operators quote.
A confirmation is the other operator agreeing: same call, same band, same mode, same time. The catch is that confirmations come from different places and they are not interchangeable.
ARRL credits LoTW confirmations and original paper QSL cards. Nothing else. A QRZ confirmation, an eQSL, or an email saying “thanks for the contact” will never count toward DXCC, however real the contact was.
This is why DxQSO keeps LoTW and QRZ as two separate, clearly labeled sets and never merges them into one “confirmed” total. Blending them would produce a number that looks better and means less — and would mislead you at exactly the moment you were deciding whether to apply.
This is the one almost nobody tracks in their own log, because it doesn't live there: it lives in ARRL's records. It's what you have submitted and had accepted — and it includes credit from paper cards you sent in years ago, contacts that may not be in any electronic log at all.
LoTW exposes this as the QSL Card Report. It's a different feed from the confirmation download every logger uses: your ordinary LoTW report tells you what is confirmed, and says nothing about what has been granted or about paper cards. The QSL Card Report covers both, so for DXCC it is your complete granted set.
Here are my own numbers, from my own logbook. I have 166 entities confirmed through LoTW in DxQSO, and ARRL has granted me 130 for Mixed DXCC. That's roughly 36 entities already confirmed and simply never submitted — sitting there, costing nothing but the application.
I didn't know that until I could see the two columns side by side, and I spent part of my career in IT at the ARRL. Most operators have a gap like this. Some have a much larger one. You cannot see it by looking at your log, because your log has no idea what you have submitted.
Under Achievements → ARRL Awards you get your DxQSO count and ARRL's granted credit on the same row, per award — Mixed, Phone, CW, Digital, the individual bands, Challenge, 5-Band DXCC, and your Honor Roll standing. The Credits page lists every granted credit ARRL holds for you, grouped by the application it came in on.
Fair question, since LoTW will show you your own credits. Two reasons, and neither is “because we can read a file.”
It makes the alerting worth having. DxQSO watches your confirmations around the clock so it can tell you when one lands. Knowing what ARRL has already granted is what lets that alert say something useful — this one is new, and it's ready to submit — instead of just announcing that a QSO confirmed. The more DxQSO knows about how you operate and where you stand, the more appropriate the alert can be.
It lets the community recognize what you've earned. Standings and achievements surface on DxSocial, to your club and the operators you care about. An award is worth more when somebody notices. That's the point of tracking it in a place other people can see, rather than only in the program on your desk.
None of this replaces your logging program, and it isn't trying to. It's the always-on, cloud side — the part that keeps watching when the shack PC is off and reaches you when you're not at the radio.
This is a page about award eligibility, so the limits matter as much as the numbers.
There's also a deliberate discrepancy worth knowing about. Achievements → Summary and the ARRL Awards page will show different DXCC totals, by design. Summary counts every entity your LoTW confirmations touch, including 60 m, with its own country-name resolution and no award rules at all. The ARRL Awards page applies the rules above. Where they differ, the awards page names the entity and the reason.
Some operators have DXCC records in several entities. LoTW's report is per award account, so DxQSO asks for the one matching the DXCC entity of your Default station. If LoTW has no account there, the page says so and tells you what to change: make a station in the entity you want the Default. It's a small thing, but it's the difference between an empty page and an explained one.
No. ARRL accepts LoTW confirmations and original paper QSL cards, and nothing else. QRZ confirmations are genuinely useful — DxQSO tracks them as their own source — but they will not earn ARRL credit, and we never blend the two sets into one number.
Keep using it. Your logger counts what you have worked and confirmed, at the desk, while you operate. This adds the third column your log cannot know — what ARRL has actually granted, paper cards included — and puts the whole picture where you are rather than where your PC is.
Almost always because those entities have never been submitted. Confirmation is not credit: someone has to send in the application. That gap is the most useful thing on the page.
Yes — the granted credits export as a spreadsheet or as ADIF in the QSL Card Report's own layout, so your logging program can read it.
No. Applications go to ARRL through their own process. DxQSO's job is to tell you when it's worth making one.
Yes. The ARRL Awards and Credits pages are open to every DxQSO user. Connect your LoTW account and press Refresh.
The thing I keep coming back to is those 36 entities. They were confirmed. They were sitting in LoTW. Nothing stood between me and the credit except knowing. That's a poor reason to be short on an award, and it's a very easy one to fix.
73,
Steve, N1EZ
LoTW® is a registered trademark of the American Radio Relay League. DXCC is an ARRL award program. DxQSO is not affiliated with or endorsed by the ARRL.
