New Submission Tool for 2023
NEW SUBMISSION TOOL FOR DXMARATHON 2023
Ladies and Gentlemen of The DX Marathon Program:
We wanted to make all of you aware early of an exciting change we have been working on throughout 2023 to simplify the submission process for your 2023 results to be submitted between January 1-5, 2024.
Why are we doing this? The answer is simple. We are trying to continue to make participation easy for everyone AND we must position our program for future growth as we expand. We don’t yet know what 2023 will bring in terms of participation but in 2022, we grew at a +46% rate. We have exciting enhancements we wish to make in the future so we must pay careful attention to our processes to make it possible to continue to administer the program in a quality manner.
How does the submission process work? In the past, you created an Excel file and that was your submission. Some of you edited this worksheet manually, directly in Excel, but most used tools like AD1C’s to process an ADIF export from your logging program, or if you were using DX Keeper, you generated the Excel worksheet directly. This Excel file is still accepted, and you can upload it on our new Submission Tool to get started with your entry.
Now, however, you can skip all these steps, generate an ADIF file from your logging program, and upload this instead of the Excel file. The Submission Tool will help you select, review and edit your entry directly, making any additional tools and applications completely optional.
You can find a link to the new Submission Tool right in the middle of www.dxmarathon.com. The most significant benefit to you with the new tool is that it will allow you to review, and more importantly, EDIT, each one of your entries.
Why is this a benefit to you? Well as you all know, you and only you are responsible for the integrity and accuracy of your reported QSO’s. Just as the case in the past, you get a wrong CQ zone, you list a pirate, or you make a typo, your QSO will be rejected, and you will lose the point. The new submission tool does not check the integrity of your QSO’s; that is for you to do just as you have in the past.
Stated another way, your results as reported are only as good as the accuracy of your log. Therefore, we encourage all participants to carefully check all of your information before submission. The tool will make this easier for you to accomplish.
If you’ve been using Excel to keep track of your progress or use DX Keeper or AD1C’s tool to generate the worksheet, you can still keep your workflow.
We have beta-tested the tool for the last 2 months with over 100 participants. The results that we have thus far are excellent and those that have used it are very impressed. Of course, in a beta test, we did uncover some issues which have been corrected.
You will notice with the tool, that there will be a list of questions as you continue through the process to include your station data, your call, and your antenna details. If you have a club affiliation, be sure to include that as well. If your club is not in the provided list, that’s fine, just make sure all clubs settle on a single descriptive input, for example, the Northern Illinois DX Association should decide on NIDXA or whatever they choose (or even better, send us an email with the name and we’ll include it in the list). The antenna questions will help define your entry classification, i.e. Unlimited, Limited, Formula, or QRP.
The tool is live now. Go ahead and try it out. As was the case in the past, you can have multiple submittals, the last of which will be the only one to be maintained. Also, your early submittals are held confidential within our system and are not available in the public domain. I encourage all to start using it to avoid a panic rush when the official submittal is due between January 1-5, 2024.
We want to encourage more software developers to produce ADIF files that work flawlessly with our tool, and if their apps do a better job at selecting QSOs than our does, then they can produce an ADIF, or even an XML file, that only has one QSO per entity and zone, so no further decisions are needed.
Your DX Marathon administrative staff are always available to assist you. I would also encourage you to join DX Marathon Group IO as that is a great forum to get many of your questions answered.
PLEASE TRY IT OUT NOW! JUST DO IT! If you have any issues, please email both Sebastian at KI2D@dxmarathon.com myself, at wc3w@dxmarathon.com and describe the issue. Any other comments are appreciated.
73 Mark-WC3W CQ DX Marathon Program Administrator