Worked All States Looks Simple. The Rules Are Where People Come Unstuck.
Sep 6, 2026 · Steve Berry, N1EZ
Worked All States is the first award most operators chase, and the one they most often assume they understand. Fifty states, work them all, done. Then you discover that the District of Columbia is not a state but does count for one, that Triple Play ignores everything you worked before 2009, and that there is a rule about where you were standing.
Your logging program almost certainly tracks WAS, and so does LoTW® (here is why we track it anyway). DxQSO tracks it too, from your LoTW confirmations, and this is what it applies.
The rules that actually bite
- Fifty states — not fifty-one. The District of Columbia counts as Maryland. If you have been counting DC separately, your number is one too high.
- ARRL accepts LoTW confirmations and original paper QSL cards (ARRL’s WAS rules). Nothing else. QRZ and eQSL confirmations, however genuine, do not count toward WAS.
- 60 m counts toward no ARRL award, WAS included.
- Alaska and Hawaii count only from statehood — 3 January and 21 August 1959 respectively, which is how LoTW's own WAS engine applies it.
5-Band WAS and Triple Play
5-Band WAS is all fifty states on each of 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 m — 250 confirmations in all.
Triple Play is all fifty states on each of voice, CW and digital: 150 confirmations. Two things make it stricter than it looks. It is LoTW-only — paper cards do not count for this one — and it counts only contacts made after 0000Z on 1 January 2009. A state you confirmed on CW in 2004 does not help.
Triple Play is the award most often started by accident and finished on purpose. Once you can see the three modes side by side, the handful of states you are missing in one mode usually turn out to be very workable.
What DxQSO cannot check — and says so on the page
This is an award-eligibility page, so the gaps matter as much as the numbers.
- The 50-mile rule is not applied. ARRL requires every contact to be made from one location, or from locations no two of which are more than 50 miles apart. DxQSO counts contacts from all of your locations, so if you have operated from widely separated places your on-screen total may be optimistic against a real application.
- Satellite WAS and the no-repeater rule are not checked. The propagation mode lives only in your own logbook fields, which our award logic deliberately does not read.
- A US confirmation with no state on the record cannot be counted. DxQSO reads the state from the QSO record itself; if it is not there, the contact cannot be placed.
- There is no "granted" column. ARRL publishes downloadable credits for DXCC only, so for WAS there is nothing to compare your confirmations against. Everything shown is what you hold, not what ARRL has awarded.
Common questions
Does DC count as its own state?
No — it counts as Maryland. WAS is fifty.
Do my QRZ confirmations count?
Not toward ARRL awards. DxQSO tracks them as a separate source, clearly labeled, and never merges them with LoTW into one figure.
Why is my count different from my logger's?
Usually 60 m, DC being counted twice, or contacts whose record carries no state. The page names what it excluded and why.
My logger already does WAS. Why use this?
Keep using it. This is the same information in your pocket, updating itself from LoTW in the background, and able to tell you when a state you still need is confirmed.
73, Steve, N1EZ
LoTW® is a registered trademark of the American Radio Relay League. DxQSO is not affiliated with or endorsed by the ARRL.
