Your DX Marathon Year Closes December 31. Here's How to Check Your Score.
Nov 10, 2026 · Steve Berry, N1EZ
The CQ DX Marathon is the friendliest of the big awards, and the one people most often forget to enter. It runs the calendar year, it resets on January 1, and the entry window closes behind you whether or not you looked. If you have been operating at all this year, you already have a score — the question is whether you will submit it.
DxQSO computes it for you and produces the file you send in. Before the detail, the usual caveat: your logging program may well track the Marathon too, and Ham2K's web-marathon does it very well — DxQSO's engine is a server-side port of that same logic, adapted to our data. We are not claiming to have invented Marathon scoring. What we add is that it runs on its own, against the confirmations we are already syncing, wherever you happen to be.
What actually counts
The Marathon is refreshingly simple to describe: your score is entities plus zones, counted once each over one calendar year.
- Entities are CQ's own list — and this is the first thing that trips people up. It is not ARRL DXCC. The Marathon uses the official CQ entity list, with a small overlay of WAE entities such as Sicily and European Turkey that count in their own right. Your Marathon entity count will not match your DXCC total, and that is correct.
- Zones are the 40 CQ zones, the same ones Worked All Zones counts.
- Regular counts each entity once and each zone once, on any band, across the eleven Marathon bands from 160 m to 6 m — 60 m and the WARC bands included.
- Challenge is the harder one: each entity and each zone counts once per band, across the eight HF bands only.
The rule worth knowing: confirmation is not required. CQ scores what you worked. An unconfirmed QSO still counts toward your Marathon score. DxQSO uses your LoTW and QRZ confirmations to pick the best QSO for each entity and zone, and to mark what is confirmed — but the score itself does not wait for anybody else to upload.
That last point surprises almost everyone, because every other award trains you to think in confirmations. The Marathon does not.
Building the submission
DxQSO produces a submission-ready ADX file in CQ's DXMARATHON format. You download it and send it in; there is no transcribing of entity lists and no spreadsheet.
If you enter Challenge, the entrant callsign is suffixed -challenge — CQ treats the two as separate entries.
What does not affect your score
Entry classes are submission metadata and nothing more. They are stamped into the submission file so CQ knows which class you are entering, they never change the number, and nothing in DxQSO ranks or filters by them. If you have been choosing a class expecting it to alter your standing, it does not.
For clubs
CQ's official club metric is the sum of its members' Regular scores — Challenge is excluded, per CQ's rules. DxQSO rolls that up across members who are tracking the Marathon, so a club can see where it stands as a group rather than by asking everyone individually.
What DxQSO does not do
- It does not submit for you. The file is yours to send to CQ.
- It does not police eligibility beyond the scoring rules — operating class, location rules and anything else in CQ's regulations are between you and CQ.
- The daily recompute is not incremental yet. It rebuilds rather than updating in place, which is fine at today's scale and is a known piece of work for later.
Common questions
Does a QSO have to be confirmed to count?
No. CQ scores worked contacts. Confirmations improve the picture and drive which QSO is shown as your best for an entity, but an unconfirmed contact still scores.
Why doesn't my Marathon entity count match my DXCC total?
Because they are different lists. The Marathon uses CQ's entity list plus a WAE overlay; DXCC uses ARRL's. They genuinely differ.
What is the difference between Regular and Challenge?
Regular counts each entity and zone once on any band, over eleven bands. Challenge counts them once per band, over the eight HF bands. Challenge is entered under a callsign suffixed -challenge.
When is the deadline?
The Marathon year ends December 31. Check your score with enough of the year left to do something about it.
73, Steve, N1EZ
LoTW® is a registered trademark of the American Radio Relay League. DxQSO is not affiliated with or endorsed by the ARRL. Worked All Zones, WPX and the DX Marathon are awards of CQ Amateur Radio. DxQSO is not affiliated with or endorsed by CQ.
