Results of the 2024 DX Marathon

For me, the Marathon is a great incentive to get on the air and work DX, even though I already have all entities confirmed, and have too many other fun activities to make a competitive effort. I’m very happy running my own race — see if I can improve my results, add some Challenge band countries and digital contacts along the way, turn in a decent effort to support my local DX club’s score, and keep the station running in top condition. I salute those of you who dedicate the time needed to run this program. GL to all in 2025! — Paula, K9IR

Thanks for the quick reply. The new submission tool is an enormous help in getting ones’ hands around an enormous amount of data quickly. So simple to submit. Thank you, — John, K8YC

My 16th year participating in this event and it continues to be fun and challenging. The DX Marathon Program is my favorite of all programs! — Jim, WX6V

I’m 92 years old now so this may be my last Marathon entry. It’s a lotta fun, however, and I’ll continue plugging away in 2025! — John, W4JS

Thanks to all the people involved in organizing the DX Marathon Program. It is truly amazing how the number of participants keeps increasing annually, 73, — Marvin, VE3VEE

This is my first DX Marathon entry. It won’t be my last. I enjoy “starting over” each year and it relieves the boredom of waiting for a new one to appear. Thanks for making this happen, and making it easy to enter. — Steven, NN4NT

I have a lousy attic antenna, but this program helps keep my interest and activity up. 73, — Al, K9XR

Another incredible year of Cycle 25, which just keeps going like the energizer bunny! For those who took part in the DX Marathon Program during 2024, propagation driven by this remarkable solar cycle once again exceeded expectations. Since its start in 2019, Cycle 25 has been more active than originally predicted. One impact to our program has been many new participants who, despite challenges like limited antenna space or low power levels, have been able to participate and enjoy the experience like never before. Now what is wrong with that? The answer: NOTHING! I have listed only a very few of the hundreds of testimonial comments that participants have submitted and I really enjoyed reading them. It makes all the work that my staff and I have done, in giving back to our hobby, worthwhile. Our greatest challenge in the program remains “getting the word out”. I again did over 80 zoom meetings to clubs, attended Hamcation in Orlando and Hamvention in Dayton to spread the word. Once folks hear about the program, the participation level spikes. Help me spread the word!

The 2024 program saw continued active participation to include almost 2/3 international and 1/3 US and Canada. We pride ourselves in being a truly international DX program. Having said this, we also recognize that we must work harder in bringing the program to a number of “underrepresented” continents. NA continues to have the highest participation level followed by South America and then Oceania. Those continents that need more participation include Asia (Japan), and EU where there is a solid base of operators yet their percentage participation in the program is significantly less than other regions. One of our goals for 2025 is to try to bolster participation in these regions. In 2024, South America that is #2 in participation historically had a slide in total participation of almost 37%!

As further evidence of the impact of Cycle 25, all classes (Figure 1) saw higher average scores in 2024 compared to 2023, with the exception of the Unlimited Class, which experienced a slight decline (201 vs 210). Many people ask me during club zoom meetings what is a good score? Now, you can see the average scores and can compare your own performance against the average for your chosen class. The total validated Q’s achieved is shown in Figure 2. Figure 3 shows the total number of participants achieving a point total of 300 or higher. In 2023 this set an unprecedented high of 99 while in 2024 76 participants produced this high score results. This may be due to some relaxing of Cycle 25 but could be to fewer activations. According to NG3K’s tabulation, there were 750 activations (many include multiple activations in a single DXCC entity) that occurred in 2024 vs 796 in 2023. This two if accurate might explain some reductions in score over 300. Separately, your DX Marathon staff did research and determined in 2023, there were 296 DXCC operating that would result in a perfect score of 336. In 2024, the numbers were 286 with max of 326 or ten less entities in play. That’s a big number.

One other metric that might be interesting to look at is what we call all time records broken in the Marathon Program. As some of you are aware, all of these statistics are maintained on the website and we invite you to check these out. Figure 3 shows the number of all time records broken in 2024 vs previous years.

It is noteworthy in spite of fewer records being set to recognize some of those that were able to establish all time records. We will start with the single band scores where Fred, PY2XB set a new all time high record for six meters with a 214 score. A mate of his in SA, PY2LCD, Billy achieved an all time high of 292 points on 30M. Lastly George from Hungary, HA5WA, scored an all time high of 214 point on 60M. Congrats to all and you are going to love your plaques! We had a new continent high score by VK2PW, Adam. Down under just raised the bar by storming the airwaves for a new Oceania SSB record, 262 points. From the land of the kangaroos and killer DX signals, this is a record that’ll echo across the bands for years. Well done mate! We had 5 new high zone records, Zone 24, BA5CW with 302, Zone 35, EL2BG 186, Zone 37, 5H8Hz 188, Zone 38, ZS2DL with 280 and Zone 39, TO2DX with 128. Congrats to all. We had a total of 19 new country scores. Remember, for 2025, we have introduced a new plaque opportunity for high country scores. If you wish to sponsor or can find a sponsor, for $100US we can sponsor the high score for your country. So far for 2025, we have beautiful plaques to be awarded for top score in Venezuela, Turkey, Slovak Republic, and Chile. With 19 new ones in 2024, how many will we have in 2025? If you are interested, please email me. There will be an unlimited supply as long as we can secure sponsors!

A mention about error rates

Some refer to the DX Marathon as a “program”, while others call it a “contest.” In reality, it can be considered both. Many participants join not just to complete but to measure the effectiveness of their Dx’ing from year to year. As someone once told me, “If something is worth doing, it’s worth measuring.” Regardless of what motivates you, one goal of the program is to make all of us better DX’ers. Each year, we closely monitor error rates in the data submitted by participants. We believe that great DX’ers pay close attention to details and that we all need self improvement. So, yes, we measure errors rates. Some key areas that require careful attention include:

• Recording the correct zone or country for each Q
• Logging each Q details including call sign correct
• Verifying the call to avoid incorrect spots or pirate stations

These and other best practices help improve overall Dx’ing skills. To further that goal, we want to share our latest error rate analysis with all participants.

In 2024, participants claimed 338,630 Q’s. After verification, we identified errors in one or more categories totaling 2.8% (9,521Q’s) which was an increase from 2023 from 2.0%. The three most common errors categories were:

• Wrong zone — 26% of errors
• Invalid call sign or call not found — 20.3%
• Wrong country — 16.8%

Collectively, these three categories made up 65% of all errors.

One category, “Not in log,” experienced a sharp 210% increase compared to 2023. Although it still represents a relatively small portion of total errors (12.3%), this trend is concerning. Our scoring team verifies claimed Q’s through multiple methods, and while official confirmations are not required, we expect participants to thoroughly review their logs to ensure the legitimacy of their Q’s. Refer to Figures 4 (total valid Q’s) and Figure 5 (error rates) for details.

One of the most interesting metrics to examine is how our participants are chasing DX by mode. In other words, how are the 350K+ Q’s distributed among digital, CW, and SSB? As shown in Figure 6, digital modes (FT8/FT4/RTTY) accounted for 71.1% of all submissions—slightly down from 72% in 2023. As a CWOps member and a CW enthusiast, I find it encouraging that CW Q’s saw a notable increase, rising to 16.7% of the total—up from 14.4% in 2023, representing a 15.9% jump. A big thanks to the CWOps organization, for their generous sponsorship of four plaques. Currently, CWOps sponsors awards for the top world CW score, as well as the top scores in North America and Europe. They also sponsor the top CWOps score. Additionally, for the first time in 2025, we have a new sponsor for the top CW score in South America! CWOps member in the world. For 2025, we now have a sponsor for top SA score in CW!

SSB in 2024 dropped to 12.2% of the Q’s submitted from a previous level of 13.7% in 2023. Therefore, CW was the only mode to realize growth as a percentage of total Q’s 2024!

Moving on with the metrics, we always like to report how the total Q’s reported by participants were allocated across the 10 bands that are allowed in the DX Marathon Program. Figure 7 shows this metric and as can be expected, 52.9 % of all the Q’s were on three bands, 10, 12 and 15M. Not surprising, 10M band had almost 1/4 of all Q’s reported. With propagation what it is today, I am certain it has given many people with less austere stations a great opportunity to work DX.

Figure 8 shows the band information in a slightly different way.

Figure 8. Distribution of Q’s across Bands 2024

Participation in the DX Marathon program for singleband categories continues but overall participation remains notably low, accounting for just 6.4% of all entrants. The 10M band has the highest number of participants, while the 12 meter band sees the least engagement. In response, DX Marathon leadership will be reviewing the award structure and may introduce a minimum participation threshold in 2025 for a plaque to be awarded. If this threshold is not met, the top participant will receive a certificate instead. Figure 9 shows a graph depicting this category choice in the program.

Figure 9. Single band entrants by band in 2024

Single Mode Entrants

The final category of participants to consider are those who entered using a single mode. Figure 10 below illustrates the percentage of participants who chose to operate exclusively in one mode — SSB, Digital, or CW. The Figure shows that CW mode only participation increased by 16% over 2023 while digital decreased by 10% and SSB single mode dropped by 44%.

We are making a strong effort to encourage participation from continents beyond North America. Historically, our program has seen roughly 33% participation from North America and 67% from other regions. In 2024, North America accounted for the highest share at 38.9%, while South America, despite a 6% drop from 2023, remained the second most represented continent only by a single participant over third ranked Oceania. The participation breakdown across all continents is illustrated in Figure 11.

And the winners are…

In previous years, I’ve traditionally kicked off the presentation of winners by highlighting the major classes. However, this year, I’d like to start by shining a light on two of my priority areas: youth and YL’s. As many of you know, I’m deeply passionate about preserving our incredible hobby, and the key to its future lies in engaging new demographics. When I first took the helm of the program, I introduced the Youth Overlay, which wa soon followed by the YL Overlay. In 2025, thanks to the support oof our new sponsor, Ann, WA1S, we’ve further refined the Youth category into two distinct age groups: 15-25 and under 15. Thanks also to Bill, W2CQ a good friend of mine who also sponsors the youth category. For the 2024 year, I am thrilled to announce the winner of the World Youth category: Pia, DL7PIA from Germany! I’ve had the pleasure of doing a few interviews with W1DED on his podcast and took the opportunity to highly recommend Pia as a guest. Kevin followed through, and you can check out that fantastic interview at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrglGU3o3bo

The #2 high youth in the world was Takes, SV8SYK, with a score of 256. Great job Takes.

And now to the top YL score in the world, congratulations to Ann, WA1S with an amazing score of 315, well done Ann. Understand that the overlay does not preclude a YL from competing in standard categories, and with this score Ann was just 3 points off the current years Unlimited score (318), and one point off the Limited World high score (316).

Ann’s score represents an all time high for YL scoring in the history of the program. Ann works so hard on DX’ing and the results are there. Besides winning this very prestigious award, Ann is very supportive of the DX Marathon program as a personal sponsor in 2025. Ann is sponsoring the new youth plaque for young hams ages 15 years old and younger. Thank you so much Ann for your contribution, your passion for DX’ing, and your support. Ann you rock!

The runner up in the YL overlay was Paula, K9IR with 298 points followed by Lauren, W4LEW with 286 points. Running 4th was Valerie, NV9L and next our highest international and Youth Winner, yep, that’s right Pia, DL7PIA. What a future this young lady has in our hobby! Congrats to all YL’s and good luck in 2025.

The Unlimited Class winner this year is John, K9EL, who was the runner-up in 2023. As many of your know, John managed the program for an incredible 17 consecutive years. That alone speaks volumes about his commitment and work ethic. We’ve always known John to be a serious DX’er and I would rank him among the best. With his score, he worked every possible entity qualified in our program save 9. I am sure if I would ask John about missing those, he would say, “I should have worked them.” being the perfectionist that he is. Congrats John!

John secured 1st place in Unlimited with a score of 318 points. And, in true John fashion, his log had zero errors. His meticulous attention to detail in checking the integrity of his contacts is truly admirable. If you think there is no competition in the Unlimited Class — think again! Second place was a three-way tie at 315 points between Ann, WA1S, Valdeci, PY2XU, and John, W9ILY. I honestly wish I could award plaques to all these outstanding participants. In fact, the top nine spots were separated by only 4 points—an incredibly tight race!

The Limited Class saw some exciting competition this year! Leading the field was James, K2JL, who claimed the top spot with an impressive 316 points — a fantastic accomplishment after finishing as the runner-up in 2023. Congratulations, James! A familiar name in the DX Marathon, James operates a high performance station out of Norwich, NY. Hot on his heels was Can, OE1TOA, with 313 points, followed closely by last year’s champion, Savas, SV2AEL, who secured a strong third-place finish with 311 points. It’s inspiring to see such stellar performances from our international participants!

A special thank you to Savas for his continued dedication in setting up and managing the DX Marathon Facebook page. Your contributions are deeply appreciated. If you haven’t visited the page yet, be sure to check it out — it’s a fantastic source for updates and helpful information.

Why participate in the DX Marathon?

Many participants join the program not to win prizes or to compete, but to track their own progress year over year in chasing DX or to compare their results with others who have similar station and antenna setups. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to read Paula, K9IR’s quote on the front page of this article — it’s something I often reference in zoom meetings with clubs because it perfectly captures the spirit of the program for many: it’s not about intense competition, but about personal growth and shared enjoyment.

Now, let’s talk about the Formula Class — a class that I believe represents a significant portion of the amateur radio community: operators running 100 watts with simple dipole or vertical antennas. If you recall, this class saw a 400% increase last year. While growth has slowed a bit this year, it’s still well within the expected range, and operators in this class remain the most numerous by far. With Cycle 25 hitting its peak combined with FT8 technology, many in this category are now able to work DX like never before. I’ve spoken with several operators living in condos or townhouses using attic antennas who are successfully making contacts around the globe! By the way, for 2025, I have listened to our customers, that is you participants, and we are splitting this class into two parts, the first is the traditional with 100W and the second will be allowing a full legal limit.

Taking the top spot in 2024, was Karel, OK2FD for two consecutive years as he was the winner last year. Karel scored 311 points which was just slightly short of his 315 last year. In the second position was Herman, YC7ONI with 302 points followed by Osman, TA2L with 301 points. This is an exciting Class and I hope we have additional substantative growth in the future. Congrats to all.

Before we dive into the QRP results, I want to take a moment to give a huge thank you to our sponsors. While I can’t mention every one of them here, they are all listed on our website at www.dxmarathon.com. Our sponsors include both clubs and individuals, and without their generous support, this program simply wouldn’t be possible. I will mention just a couple as they have been so loyal in their support. The Northern Illinois DX Association has sponsored the Unlimited, Limited, and Formula plaques for years. As mentioned earlier, the CWOps organization now sponsors 4 plaques, and the Araucaria Group in Brazil, led by Oms, PY5EG generously sponsors all eight singleband plaques. We are so grateful to every club and individual who continues to support the DX Marathon. Remember, we can issue as many plaques as we have sponsors — if you wish to become a sponsors, please send me an email at wc3w@dxmarathon.com.

The dedicated participants in the QRP class continue to impress. While it may not be my personal preference, I truly admire their tenacity and patience. Once again, they had a strong showing in 2024, with Dan Walker III, WG5G taking home the plaque with an impressive 302 points. You may remember that in 2023, Dan set an all-time record with 313 points — an achievement that may stand unmatched in the program’s history. Congratulations once again, Dan for your outstanding participation. QRP continues to grow in popularity. In fact, for 2025, a sponsor approached us requesting a sub-class that allows for unlimited antennas, similar to the Unlimited Class.

We’ve made room for this request, and starting in 2025, the QRP category will include a second class. Please see the website for updated rules and details.

In second place with a point total of 291 was Roberto, PU2RTO followed by Stefano, IZ3NVR with 277 followed by Marcello, PY2MLO 269. Can’t help but notice that all but one of the top 5 were international operators.

It is indeed fitting to recognize the single-mode accomplishments for 2024. Once again, Lada, OK2PAY who tells me 2024 was his last year of participation, walked away with the highest CW score (10th consecutive year) with a total of 297. If Lada is retiring we wish him well, and if we ever put together a DX Marathon Hall of Fame, he will be the first to be nominated for sure.

For another CW accomplishment, we wish to congratulate Bob, K5BG for the highest North American CW score posting 281 points in 2024. Way to go Bob in growing the CW participation in DX Marathon!

The next grouping of plaque awards include the worldwide SSB and digital score. This year, Julio is back on top with a point total of 284. Good to see you back Julio. The highest digital plaque award goes to Steve, N3SL with a score of 309. Antonio, PY2APK was a close 2nd at 308. Steve has been a consistent winner of that top Digital award.

The competition for worldwide SSB was a tie. On Phone, Ricky IU1RLJ scored 284 which tied Julio but the rules state when there is a tie, the operator whose last scoring contact was earlier chronologically will be judged the winner, and that was Julio.

Individual Band Winners

Previously mentioned, the plaque winners for the 6M band, Fred, PY2XB, the 30M band, Billy, PYLCD, and 60M, George, HA5WA, not only won those bands but established all time high record scores on those bands.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the godfather of our program, Bob, W9KNI who again took the plaque on 40 meters, all phone and CW I must mention.

The next person I want to congratulate also has been a loyal supporter and participant of the DX Marathon program for years. I call him Mr. 20M, and that will our #1 outstanding Canadian participant, Marvin, VE3VEE. Marvin again captured the 20M plaque with a score of 314 using a combination of Phone, CW, and Digital modes. Well done.

As most of you know, it is a DX Marathon policy to not issue multiple plaques to winners. We go with the highest “ranking” plaque as listed on the awards hierarchy in the Rules. However, we have an exception as the brand new “Super Marathon Plaque” which was initiated in 2024 in honor of John, K9EL’s 17 years of dedication to the Marathon program is special.

Marvin will be receiving a second plaque this year as he took #1 position in the Super Marathon overlay. If you recall, to be considered for this award, you had to have participated at least 5 consecutive years in the Marathon Program. We simply added the individual scores for those five years and Marvin ended up on top. Now for the really amazing news. Marvin finished with a sum of 1,521 points and the runner-up John, K2ZJ accumulated 1,520 points — just 1 point separating the top two. Coming in third was Barry, N2BJ with 1,513 points and John, W9ILY with 1,512. The spread among the top 10 finishers was just 21 points, truly remarkable. Congrats Marvin and to all. We will continue with this award in 2025. This is intended to be a one time award so those top folks this year will contend for the Super Marathon Plaque in 2025.

Moving ahead with the single band winners, 10M saw keen competition between two South American, Brazil station, with a virtual tie between Claudio, PU2KNM and Danilo, PY2DMZ with 272 points. The tie rule had to be applied and PU2KNM came out on top. For the 12M band, John, K2ZJ walked with the victory, 303 points, and a beautiful plaque while 15M was won by Bill, K2TQC with 313 points. Bill just keeps dancing around single bands and pretty much winning whatever he pursues. Bill, what’s in that glass… orange juice?

The 17 meter winner was PY2NF with 296 points and the 60M band plaque was secured by HA5WA with 214 points followed by many time past winner Ken, W1NG. Great job on a fun band fellows. George won the 60M plaque back in 2022.

The 80M single band award goes to repeat plaque winner, Sergio, PP5JR. I had the privilege of spending time with Sergio at Dayton last year and his beautiful daughter, Juliana, PU5JDA. Juliana gave presentations to both her peer group and also to youth teaching instructors at Dayton. Sergio, his wife, his daughters, his son, and his daughter’s fiancée are all ham radio operators.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the two last bands, 6M and 160M. I truly believe it does take a rare breed to pursue DX on these bands but many do, and I am so happy that we are all made different in our likes and dislikes! The beauty of our hobby just like the DX Marathon Program, there is something for everybody! On 6M, congratulations to our new 2024 winner, yes, another South American, Fred, PY2XB with 214 points. Fred has a second remote station and turned in a separate call, PR7XB and from that station tallied a score of 210 points. Cedric, F5UKW last years winner was third with 208.

On 160M band, we had Dieter, DL8OH turn in a scope of 150 points followed by last years winner, Rich, K7ZV with 131 points.

Continent Winners

We had some special top continent winners this year. Those worthy of mentioning include veteran participant and frequent winner Jose, CT3MD that took the African continent plaque with a score of 313. Asia was won by another operator very frequently at the top in the Marathon Halil, TA2LG. We welcome Serge, R6YY back into the Marathon who took the top European continent plaque, great to have you back Serge. In Oceania, Andi, YE1BON captured the honors with a score of 312 while Valdeci, PY2XU nabbed the South American top score with 315 points.

Challenge and Club Winners

We have two more plaque categories to discuss and that is the new Challenge Program introduced in 2024 and of course the Club scores.

As for the Challenge, we introduced this class with a limit for signing up. As all know, the DX Marathon does not require for normal participation any signup. We had some concerns about over subscribing and the impact on our scoring system because each entry represented 8x the scoring load. We limited it to 75 participants and in fact had 175 sign up! Thank you all for your interest and we will see how it goes for 2025. We still want a sign up because the numbers do need to be managed so send me an email if you have interest. The Challenge was established for the veteran DX Marathoners who wished to pursue DX on each individual band 10-80M (8 bands). The objective is to work as many DXCC entities plus zones in each band. Your scoring team sums up each band and that is your final score. We have two plaques to issue this year, the top score and the runner up. Oms, PY5EG achieved a total of 2159 points to secure the top plaque and the runner up was Oscar, EA1DR with 2098. From there the scores dropped to 2,000 and below.

Photo O. Oms, PY5EG the winner of the first Challenge Class plaque. Thank you Oms for your participation and the contributions to our program from the Araucaria DX Club

Moving to the Club competition, as all know we are very bullish on Club participation and in 2024, we created three divisions of club, Large, Medium, and Small Club to try to level the playing field. We were able to find sponsors for all three levels and the results are now in. Winning for the third time in a row was the YB-LAND DXing Passion Is Club out of Indonesia with a total 39,172 points.

The winner of the medium size club and their first serious year of participation was the Potomac Valley DX Club with a score of 40277. Lastly, the winner of the small club plaque (25 or less entries) was Ari Bolzano Bozen Club from Italy. Please review the 2025 rules on the website as further classification changes were made for this year’s club rules.

Certificate Winners

We, in the DX Marathon Program, believe that recognition for worthy and hard efforts deserve recognition. This year we will issue over 130 certificates to those who participated in the program. The details of the certificate awards are provided on the www.dxmarathon.com website. Certificates are awarded for the top continental score for each of the three modes, top score in each country, top score in each CQ Zone, top score in each Canadian call district, top score in each USA call area for each of the DX Marathon classes plus the top single mode score in the USA. Congratulations to all the certificate winners this year.

Some Operating Advice and Suggestions

Most of you have visited our website at www.dxmarathon.com. Your operating staff spends lots of time keeping this website current and it is the primary conduit between my staff and all of our worldwide participants. Each section of this website holds lots of information that will help all of our participants. The website also includes the current year rules translated into 12 languages. If you don’t see your language on the Rules Tab, please let me know and we will ask you to translate it and it will be posted. We have past records on the website so as you are contemplating which category that you wish to enter, you can calculate your scores in advance and decide by looking at past results. There is no early declaration required in our program except for the Challenge as previously mentioned. You can decide at the time you submit. Note also that you can submit right now for 2025. Each and everyone of you are in the program. Simply go to your logging program, create and adif file, and upload it to the site specified on the webpage.

By far, one of the most important helpful tools available to you is listed under the Resources tab. Here you can look at many subcategories. The most valuable will be the Valid Calls & Notes, and Invalid Callsigns.

Why are these so important? Please remember that each participant is responsible for the accuracy of their submission. If you make an error, you will incur a one point deduction for each mistake. I know from my own experience that my errors have decreased over time because of the time I spent verifying my submissions.

When logging a QSO from a DX spot, listen carefully to the DX station to make sure the callsign is logged correctly. As you saw earlier in this article, a large percentage of all point subtractions are due to busted or incorrect calls. It is truly amazing to see a station reported with the wrong call propagate through spotting networks right to your own submittal. The database that we use to check calls for QRV’s includes start and stop dates so make sure you are properly logging the correct dates.

Special Thanks to So Many

This has been a special year for the DX Marathon Program. There are many forces present that make this program what it is today. First of all, we would not exist without the generosity of our sponsors. These sponsors, that include both clubs and individuals, make it possible for the DX Marathon to exist. Without them, there would be no DX Marathon Program. We ask all the plaque winners each year to do two things… the first is to send us a photo of you in your shack holding the plaque, and, far more importantly, we ask each of you to send a personal email to the sponsor of the plaque thanking them for their generosity.

Just as importantly, I would like to thank my loyal and hardworking staff. They have spent hundreds of hours this year in making this program what it is today. Larry Loen, WO7R upgraded and rewrote the entire scoring system that will allow us to score many times the participants that we had this year, and with a greater level of precision. Sebastian Delmont, KI2D redesigned our website, created a one-step submission tool that greatly simplifies submissions, and has provided assistance and training to me on how to manage and make changes to our website.

John Samuels, K2CIB reviews many DX publications daily and provides inputs to all of us on good calls, broken calls, pirates, dxpedition details, etc. He spends hundreds of hours a year keeping you, our participants, with updated information. Doug McDuff, W4OX our compliance manager has assisted me in evaluating rules, etc. Jim, AD1C has supported us also with his data base research on calls, pirates, etc. His data base is the best and most accurate in the world and we do appreciate his continued support.

We also wish to thank our developers who have supported our program. I know it has not been easy as we transition to the new submission tool, but we do appreciate your continued support as we move the program forward. There will undoubtedly be further changes as we enhance and make the program more interesting to more people. Please hang in there with us and continue to support the Marathon.

We wish to thank all of our participants worldwide. As previously mentioned, we are an international program and our aim is to expand participation in a number of areas including under-represented countries. We cannot do this by ourselves as we do have limited resources. We ask that you spread the good news to your fellow hams in your respective countries. I would thoroughly enjoy zooming to clubs in other parts of the world as I have done in NA and SA. I would be more than happy to do these meetings but I need your assistance.

I would like to thank those of you who have generously given donations to assist us in offsetting our costs. We do have costs throughout the year and to expand the program further, it is imperative that we build up our working capital. If you have $5 or $10 please consider donating through PayPal or by other means as described on our website. PayPal is international, works just fine and costs nothing, when you send it to a “friend”. Please consider.

WC3W Final Comments

Although our participation this year was robust, we were able to catch our breath and enhance our program. I consider our participants our customers and as I did when in industry, I learned early on that you always listen to your customers as they more than not have great ideas for your product or service. We encourage your active involvement through our Facebook page, through Group IO, or send us emails directly. I can’t promise you we can implement your suggestions, but I can promise you we will listen and discuss your ideas. My aim for the future years is to keep grinding out and doing as quality a job as is possible through our volunteers to produce a quality product for you, our customers, while at the same time expanding participation.

There are some continents in the world that are grossly underrepresented when considering the number of active DX radio operators. I continue to think about how we can gain exposure to these areas. If you wish to help us through attending local clubs activities, hamfests or any other venues that involve a collection of active ham radio operators, please let me know how we can support you.

Please enjoy your participation in 2025. We don’t know how long the Cycle 25 will hang in there but it does not get much better than it has been the last couple of years. The following pages post the many results for 2024. Enjoy and “Gud DX’ing.

73, Mark Wohlschlegel, WC3W