CQ DX Marathon Guide: A Year-Long Chase for Countries and Zones

DXCC is a lifetime pursuit, and after the first few hundred entities the new ones arrive slowly. The DX Marathon turns the same chase into an annual competition with a fresh start every January: work as many countries and CQ zones as you can between 1 January and 31 December, on any band and in any mode, with each country and each zone counting once. Nobody carries a lead from last year, a modest station can compete in its own class, and the rare ones you missed in a previous year are back on the list. This guide explains what the Marathon is, how it is scored and submitted, how it differs from DXCC and the other award programmes, and a practical month-by-month strategy for a good score from an ordinary station.

What the DX Marathon Is

The Marathon is run by a team of volunteer managers under the CQ banner. The official DX Marathon website states the idea in one sentence: starting on 1 January and running until the end of December, work as many countries and CQ zones as you can in each calendar year, regardless of band or mode, with each country and zone counting only once. The site describes it as the answer for the DXer who needs an incentive to get on the air every day, and that is exactly how it works in practice. Because a country worked on 20 metre FT8 in January counts the same as one worked on 160 metre CW in December, the Marathon rewards presence and attention rather than any particular band or mode.

Entries are submitted through an online tool, and the site encourages participants not to wait until the last minute to test the submission process. An entry can be updated as often as you like until the deadline, which for the 2026 Marathon is 5 January 2027 according to the site. A leaderboard shows current standings during the year, and the managers publish full results for each year, together with all-time records and results from previous years. Awards are given for the top scores in several classes and for top scores by mode, by band and by US call area, and the site says that every participant from 2025 onward receives a certificate summarising their year. The current rules and the rules for previous years are on the DX Marathon rules page; read the current year’s rules before you start, because details such as classes and what counts as a country are defined there and can change between years.

How It Differs From DXCC and the Other Awards

The Marathon shares its country list idea with DXCC and its zone idea with Worked All Zones, but the structure is different, and that is what makes it interesting. The table shows the main contrasts.

The practical effect is that the Marathon sits between an award and a contest. Our guides to how DXCC works and to CQ zones versus ITU zones cover the two building blocks, and our survey of awards beyond DXCC puts the Marathon among its neighbours.

Scoring and What Counts

The score is the number of countries worked plus the number of zones worked, each counted once. The country list used by the Marathon is defined in its rules and is close to, but not necessarily identical with, the DXCC list; the rules page is the authority for the current year, and the managers publish resources and software tools to help participants keep track. Because a contact only needs to be made, not necessarily confirmed by card, the emphasis is on the log: keep it accurate, with the correct date in UTC, because a contact logged at 23:30 on 31 December in local time may be 1 January in UTC and belong to the next year’s Marathon.

Classes separate stations by power or other criteria set out in the rules, so that a 100 W station with a wire is not compared directly with a multi-tower station. There are also categories within the results by mode and by band, which means a single-band or single-mode specialist can aim at a result in their own list even without a top overall score.

A Month-by-Month Strategy

The Marathon rewards consistency more than heroics. The following plan is written for a modest station in a temperate northern location, and the principles translate to anywhere.

January and February

Start with the easy ones. Every country you can hear on an ordinary evening is a point, and there are dozens within a few hours of operating on the low bands in winter. Work the FT8 sub-bands on 40 and 20 metres, listen for the big winter contests, where hundreds of countries are on the air in one weekend, and log everything. Set up your tracking before the end of January: a spreadsheet, the managers’ tools or a logger that reports countries and zones per year.

March and April

The equinox opens the long paths on the high bands. This is the time to pick up the Pacific, the Far East and the long-path openings that give the zones you cannot reach from the low bands. The spring DX contests fill the bands with rare prefixes. Review your zone map at the end of April: the missing zones tell you where to point the antenna for the rest of the year.

May to August

Summer is DXpedition season in the northern hemisphere and sporadic E season on the high bands. Keep an eye on announced operations, because a DXpedition to an unusual place may be the only chance that year for that country. The low bands are noisy and short, so shift effort to 20, 17 and 15 metres in the long evenings.

September and October

The autumn equinox reopens the long paths, and the two largest DX contests of the year fall at the end of October and November. These weekends are the biggest single opportunity in the Marathon: a weekend spent in search-and-pounce during a worldwide contest can add tens of countries and several zones. Have your list of missing ones printed before the contest starts.

November and December

Fill the gaps. The low bands are at their best, the remaining contests bring out the rare multipliers, and a well-kept list shows exactly which countries and zones are still missing. Then, before the deadline, submit the entry; the site allows updates right up to the deadline, so submit early and refine.

Tools That Make the Difference

• A log that counts per year. Most logging programs can report countries and zones worked within a date range. Set up that report in January and check it monthly.
• A missing list. Keep the countries and zones you still need where you can see them, on paper or on the screen, so that a spot of one of them gets an immediate reaction.
• Spot alerts for the missing ones. The Marathon is won in the minutes after a rare station appears. A monitoring tool such as LY4A DX Reminder watches five spot sources, including the Reverse Beacon Network and PSK Reporter, for callsigns or prefixes you name, on the bands and modes you choose, and raises an alarm on your phone or desktop the moment one is spotted, which is how you catch a short opening to a missing zone while you are away from the radio.
• Club Log and the most-wanted lists. They show which countries are genuinely rare and which only seem rare from your location; our Club Log guide explains how to read them.
• A contest calendar. The big DX contests are the Marathon’s harvest weekends; plan holidays and family commitments around them if you are serious.
• The managers’ resources. The site publishes resources, a sample scoresheet and software tools for keeping score and preparing the submission.

Keeping Score Through the Year

The bookkeeping is simple but it has to be done. At the end of each month, run your logger’s report of countries and zones worked since 1 January, compare it with the Marathon’s own country list rather than with the DXCC list, and update your missing list. Most participants keep two views: a count, which tells them how the year is going against their own previous results and against the leaderboard, and a map of zones, which tells them where the gaps are. A zone that is missing in June is a target for the autumn; a zone still missing in November needs a specific plan, such as a low-band sunrise session or a particular contest weekend.

Keep the log tidy as you go. Fix callsigns that were logged wrongly as soon as you notice, check that portable and maritime prefixes have been assigned to the right country by the logger, because a logger’s automatic country lookup is not always right for unusual prefixes, and record the UTC date correctly for contacts around midnight. A clean log in December makes the submission a matter of minutes; a log full of doubtful entries turns the deadline week into an audit. If you use the managers’ tools or scoresheet, fill them in monthly rather than once at the end, and you will also catch the countries the software counted that the Marathon does not.

Common Mistakes

Starting in March. The first two months are the easiest points of the year, and a station that only begins when the high bands open has given away a head start to everyone else.

Ignoring zones. Zones are a large fraction of the score and some of them, in the Pacific, the Arctic and central Asia, are hard from most locations. Chasing them deliberately from the spring onward is the difference between a good score and an excellent one.

Working the same countries on every band. That is the DXCC habit. In the Marathon a second contact with a country already worked this year adds nothing; the time is better spent looking for one you have not.

Submitting at the last minute. The site advises testing the submission process early, and an entry can be updated until the deadline. There is no reason to risk missing it.

Not reading the current rules. Classes, the country list and the submission requirements are defined in the rules for each year. Read them in January.

The Bottom Line

The DX Marathon is the friendliest serious DX competition there is: a clean slate every January, every band and mode on equal terms, each country and zone once, and a class for stations like yours. Start in the first week of the year, keep a list of what is missing, use the big contests as harvest weekends, chase the zones on purpose, set alerts for the rare ones, and submit early. The score at the end of December is a fair measure of a year’s attention to the bands, and that is exactly what the Marathon was designed to reward.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the DX Marathon?

An annual CQ-sponsored competition in which you work as many countries and CQ zones as possible between 1 January and 31 December, on any band or mode, with each country and zone counting once. The score resets every year.

Do contacts need QSL confirmation for the DX Marathon?

The entry is based on your submitted log data rather than on card confirmations; the current rules on the official site set out the exact requirements for each year.

Does a country worked on two bands count twice?

No. Each country and each zone counts only once per year, regardless of how many bands or modes you worked it on.

When is the DX Marathon submission deadline?

Shortly after the year ends; the site gives 5 January 2027 as the deadline for the 2026 Marathon and allows entries to be updated until then. Check the rules page for the current year.

Can a small station do well in the DX Marathon?

Yes. Classes separate stations by power and other criteria, and results are also listed by mode and band, so a modest station competes against similar stations.

What is the best strategy for the DX Marathon?

Start in January, keep a list of missing countries and zones, use the big DX contests and announced DXpeditions, chase zones deliberately, set spot alerts for the rare ones and submit your entry early.