Every DXCC chaser carries a private ranking of what is hard. Ask ten operators which entity is the rarest and you will get ten answers, most of them shaped by whatever they personally have never caught.
The hobby already has a good public answer to that question: Club Log's DXCC Most Wanted list. It is built from the uploaded logs of a very large number of active DXers, and it ranks every current entity by how many of them still need it. It is the standard reference, and rightly so. DxQSO uses it too: our difficulty tiers and Most Wanted ranks come from Club Log's list, refreshed weekly and labelled Data: Club Log wherever they appear.
We also run a DX cluster and keep the spots. So we asked a narrower question that the cluster is well placed to answer: of the entities people want, which ones actually show up on the air? This post compares the two.
Two different measurements
Club Log measures demand: how many operators still need an entity. That is what "most wanted" means, and it is the right basis for a Most Wanted list.
The cluster measures activity: how often an entity is heard and spotted. DxQSO runs its own DXSpider node and archives every spot that crosses it. We took four years of that archive (2023–2026, about 12 million spots) and counted, for each DXCC entity, the number of separate days it was spotted at all. Counting days instead of spots means one big DXpedition does not make an entity look common: St. Paul Island had thousands of spots in a few weeks and still ranks as rare.
The two numbers answer different questions. Club Log tells you how hard an entity is to get. The cluster tells you whether it is likely to be on the air at all, without a DXpedition.
Where they agree
Mostly, they agree. Across the 243 entities both lists rank, the order lines up closely (a rank correlation of 0.95). The common end matches too: the United States, Italy, Germany, Spain and France sit at the bottom of both. And the rare entities that do appear on the cluster sit near the top of Club Log's list as well:
| Entity | Club Log Most Wanted | Cluster activity rank |
|---|---|---|
| Desventuradas Islands | 4 | 12 |
| Scarborough Shoal | 6 | 4 |
| Macquarie Island | 13 | 2 |
| Syria | 14 | 11 |
| New Zealand Subantarctic Islands | 16 | 6 |
| Mellish Reef | 24 | 3 |
| Myanmar | 36 | 14 |
| Tokelau | 37 | 1 |
| Chagos Islands | 43 | 5 |
| Banaba | 49 | 7 |
Most Wanted ranks: Data: Club Log, October 2026. Cluster rank: 1 = fewest days spotted in the DxQSO archive.
Where they differ, and why
The very top of Club Log's list is mostly missing from the cluster. Seven of Club Log's ten most wanted entities do not appear in our archive at all: Johnston Atoll, Kure Atoll, Kerguelen, Peter I, Isla de Aves, Pratas and Midway. That is not a disagreement; it is exactly what you would expect. These are places with no resident amateurs, often no residents at all, and in some cases no access without government permission. They come on the air when a DXpedition goes, and otherwise they are silent. A cluster cannot rank what nobody is transmitting from. The same is true of entities where amateur radio is not permitted or barely exists: North Korea is Club Log's number one, and almost all of the "P5" spots on any cluster are busted calls or pirates rather than genuine activity.
So the cluster's view is not a better Most Wanted list. It is a view of the entities you can realistically work today, without waiting for a new DXpedition or a change of government.
In the middle, some entities are rare on the air but no longer in high demand. Märket Island, Burundi, Togo, Rwanda, Svalbard and Sint Maarten are all spotted on relatively few days, yet Club Log places them well down its list. The likely reason is that a good DXpedition or a well-run operation worked enough people that most active DXers already have them. If you are one of the many who do, Club Log is right that they are not a priority. If you are newer to DXCC and still need them, the cluster is a reminder that they do not come around often.
What we do with it
For ranking how hard an entity is, DxQSO uses Club Log's Most Wanted list. We are not trying to replace it.
What the cluster adds is the real-time part. DxQSO watches spots as they arrive and compares them with your own confirmed entities, so it can tell you when something you still need is on the air right now. A list of rare entities on its own is a reference. Joined to your logbook and to what is on the air, it tells you when to go to the radio.
How to read the two together
- High on Club Log and seen on the cluster: the ones to act on the moment they are spotted. Syria, Myanmar, Tokelau and Chagos are in this group.
- High on Club Log, never on the cluster: DXpedition-only. Watch the announcements, not the spots.
- Rare on the cluster, lower on Club Log: probably not a priority if you have been chasing DXCC for years. If you have not, take them when you hear them.
- Low on both: if one of these is still missing from your log, it is not because it is hard. Check that the confirmation actually arrived; see where you stand on the Honor Roll.
Common questions
Which list does DxQSO use for Most Wanted ranks?
Club Log's DXCC Most Wanted list, refreshed weekly and labelled "Data: Club Log". It is the standard reference for how wanted an entity is.
Where does the cluster data come from?
DxQSO's own DXSpider cluster node. Every spot is archived; the comparison here uses four years of it and counts the days each entity was spotted.
Why are some of the rarest entities missing from the cluster data?
Because nobody is on the air from them between DXpeditions. Many have no resident amateurs, and some do not permit amateur radio at all. The cluster can only measure what is transmitted.
Is the cluster ranking complete?
No. It covers 248 entities. Most of the rest are the silent ones above, but a handful of common entities are missing because our archive does not yet match every prefix to its entity. That is a gap in our data, not a sign those entities are rare, and it is one more reason we use Club Log's list for the rankings themselves.
73, Steve, N1EZ
Club Log is run by Michael Wells, G7VJR. DxQSO is not affiliated with Club Log. LoTW® is a registered trademark of the American Radio Relay League. DxQSO is not affiliated with or endorsed by the ARRL.
