[SFDXA] 2021 DX Ultra-Marathon Official Results - True Blue DXers Club <club at tbdxc.net>

[Bill]

  True Blue DXers Club - TBDXC Ultra Marathon!



  A successful first year

The time has come to wrap up and summarize the very first edition of the 
TBDXC Ultra Marathon! I must say that it has been a thrill and a great 
pleasure to take part in this annual activity, which we hope will grow 
into an institution in Classic Ham Radio. Furthermore, the pleasure in 
being part of the team managing the Marathon is even greater.

In total, the 2021 Ultra Marathon received logs from 205 scoring 
callsigns, containing a total of 530163 QSOs which were uploaded to the 
server. We are aiming for more participants,working more QSOs in the 
classic modes in the 2022 edition, which also includes the WARC bands 
and introduces a new MIXED class. We are very excited and truly believe 
that the Ultra Marathon success will continue. It may it take a few 
years, but the TBDXC Ultra Marathon is here to stay!


  Top scorers and runner ups

Considering the rather poor conditions in the beginning of 2021, the 
amazing results of the top-scoring stations are nothing less than 
stunning. Each class winner and runner up has indeed made a remarkable 
achievement! Remember, it takes a lot of skill and patience to obtain 
results like these, not just a good station. Of course, a good station 
and good antennas are important, but the most important «tools» that we 
have are our ears and what we have between our ears! Timing, patience, 
endurance and operating skills are necessary for what has been described 
as «the hardest competition in amateur radio».

*CW High Power*

 1. 9A2AJ Tomislav «Tom» Polak

63822759 points, 31489 QSO, 984 DXCC, 219 Zones, 53053 QSO points

 2. AA3B Joseph «Bud» W Trench

42413967 points, 31758 QSO, 661 DXCC, 178 Zones, 50553 QSO points

 3. K5ZD Randall A «Randy» Thomson

24339276 points, 16245 QSO, 625 DXCC, 169 Zones, 30654 QSO points

*SSB High Power*

 1. CE4PS Philip A. «Phil» Smith

7738016 points, 6638 QSO, 314 DXCC, 104 Zones. 18512 QSO points

 2. IK0NMJ Valter Brilli

7539795 points, 7399 QSO, 550 DXCC, 135 Zones, 11007 QSO points

 3. KL7KK James Kohl

6278430 points, 5080 QSO, 336 DXCC, 135 Zones, 13330 QSO points

*CW Low Power*

 1. OK2ZV Vit Kuncar

14459490 points, 11539 QSO, 750 DXCC, 176 Zones, 15615 QSO points

 2. YO8DOH Stefan Mancas

11858330 points, 12732 QSO, 524 DXCC, 146 Zones, 17699 QSO points

 3. SN5J Janusz Czerwinski

9571718 points, 11463 QSO, 510 DXCC, 137 Zones, 14794 QSO points

*SSB Low Powe*r

 1. IK4RQJ Augusto Baldoni

11630244 points, 9734 QSO, 656 DXCC, 143 Zones, 14556 QSO points

 2. IU1HJF Rubens Brusati

2175660 points, 3558 QSO, 293 DXCC, 102 Zones, 5508 QSO points

 3. EA4HKF Jose Antonio Montero

1963440 points, 2516 QSO, 399 DXCC, 106 Zones,  3888 QSO points

*CW QRP*

 1. DL3NAA Peter Ackermann

2709703 points, 4534 QSO, 397 DXCC, 82 Zones, 5657 QSO points

 2. EA3O Santiago Sanyé Gonzáles

224064 points, 791 QSO, 113 DXCC, 31 Zones, 1556 QSO points

 3. DF5WW Juergen «Juk» Umstaedter

205886 points, 783 QSO, 184 DXCC, 42 Zones, 911 QSO Points

*SSB QRP*

 1. HK4KM Guillermo Sobalvarro

23377 points, 127 QSO, 61 DXCC, 36 Zones, 241 QSO points

 2. DG4SFS Ulrich «Uli» Lebegern

22932 points, 219 QSO, 79 DXCC, 19 Zones, 234 QSO points

 3. DK2LO Olaf Dr. Achterberg

4356 points, 190 QSO, 32 DXCC, 4 Zones, 121 QSO points


  Full results and certificates

The full results of the 2021 edition are available on the Ultra-Marathon 
website.

*There, every participant will also be able to download a personalised 
certificate with callsign, name, score and position in the participation 
category*.


  The 2022 edition is in full swing!

13 days after the website opened for log upload, we already have 56 
stations scoring for the 2022 edition. As you already know, this year 
you will be able to make QSOs on the WARC bands, and to participate in 
MIXED mode.

Please note that if you want to change your mode or power category, it 
is no longer necessary to write an email - you can do it directly on 
your "profile" section of the Marathon website.

*Whether you are a "competitive" participant or not, we strongly 
encourage you to upload your logs. Even if you do not intend to take 
part in the Marathon as a competition (against your fellow hams, or 
against yourself), by uploading your log you will increase the number or 
scoring stations, therefore showing the success of the initiative and 
encouraging more people to join. Just upload your everyday log in .adif 
format, and the system will do all the job of selecting the relevant 
QSOs, calculation the score and placing you in the leaderboards.

https://tbdxc.hamserver.de/marathon/*

For competitive participants, we also strongly encourage you to upload 
your log soon, and update them frequently - this will keep the 
leaderboards relevant and encourage competition in a sprit of 
sportsmanship, whereby competitors can see what their peers are doing.

Finally, remember that for any questions or request you can contact the 
TBDXC staff through club at tbdxc.net

73 to all.
Hans LB6GG TBDXC Marathon Manager


  A few words and thoughts from some 2021 top scorers

*9A2AJ Tom*
At the age of 16 year I started amateur radio (1965). My first call sign 
was YU4VOY(1970), YU4YA(1978),and YU2AJ(1987) now 9A2AJ. 160m band CW is 
my priority band from 1980.year (301 CFM). I have confirmed all DXCC CW, 
only P5 on SSB! Hi. I am currently working with IC-7300, OM2500 HF 
linear, and Inv.L antenna for 160m (21,5m AL-mast+27m wire loud), for 
80m, full length vertical Delta loop, for 40m full length Oblong (loop) 
and for 20-15-10m, LZA10-3 Beam at 16m. I am now retired (from 2001) as 
the Chief of Staff of the Croatian Army.

The Ultra Marathon is a great idea. Working on nine bands is OK, but I 
think that categories by bands should be introduced, since many amateurs 
do not have the ability to "cover" all bands with antennas. It would  
also be good to have a category for YL (CW+SSB). I think that this would 
involve many more amateurs in the contest and thus gain in mass and thus 
greater opportunities for eventual sponsors for awards. I would say, 
sponsor a plaque for one of the categories... So.
/Note: due to family issues, Tom cannot take part in the 2022 Ultra 
Marathon. We sincerely hope to see him in 2023./

*CE4PS Philip*
When the marathon started i did not have the permission to operate 20 
and 15 meters, i just needed a couple of months to get my General 
license, when finally happened i rush into those bands, and finally gave 
a rest to 10 and 40 meters. Another world opened to my ears on 20 and 
15. At that moment i changed my callsign from CA4PSH to CE4PS and with 
my new privileges I ramped up the QSO count.
My station is an Icom IC-7610, Amplifier is Palstar LA-1K, antenas are 2 
element beam for 40 meters and 3 element quad cubic for 20-15-10 meters. 
HF-AUTO stepper tuning network and a couple of rotators.
I am located in central Chile, South America, latitude 34º South, 200 
mts from the coast of the pacific ocean at 30 meter above mean sea level.

The 2021 edition presented a huge challenge to me, because of the rules 
and my former license when the marathon started, nevertheless i found 
the initiative to be a tremendous push on the back for many ham 
operators to put our signals in the air i the traditional way with 
plenty of enthusiasm. It’s an excellent way to test ourselves and our 
station competitiveness. Very glad to see a 2022 edition and a 
forthcoming 2023!

I think this marathon is going be more great with the pass of the years, 
and it is great already!. I hope to hear more about it from word to 
word, it is still a little unknown to the ham community, I wish to have 
the possibility to have the marathon rule sets included en the popular 
logging programs like N1MM or RUMLogNG etc., i would like to have more 
categories, to be fair with people with novice licenses, who have band 
restrictions. And maybe just for the fun of watching, a kind of bar 
graph with the leaderboard positions.

*OK2ZV Vit*
As any other sporting event with the word “marathon” in its name, it was 
a great challenge. Running marathons tend to be specific, they are both 
mentally and physically difficult. I’ve experienced many running 
marathons and every single one of them has enriched me so much that the 
time has come to try the amateur radio marathon. After a month, I now 
can say that yes, it was tough and demanding. I was trying to be active, 
mainly in the contests but after finding out that the bands keep 
repeating themselves (SN5J 25 qso, YO8BOH 19 qso…tnx), it was time to be 
available on the band everyday and work “classically” i.e. chatting with 
the stations about almost anything and not only exchanging 5nn and 
hunting for new countries and zones.

I was working with a great number of Russian stations. Their activity is 
unbelievable, and the number of new call signs constantly being present 
on bands as well. It’s amazing.I wasn’t active in two major cw contests. 
During the cw ARRL contest, I was cooperating with my friends OK5Z. 
While the CQ WW  cw was happening, I was taking care of my 85 year old 
mother. It all ended up well :)

For the whole year, it was mainly a battle with calling the dx stations. 
100W (icom 756 pro II) is not a lot of power and my antennas are simply 
not the best. Five years ago, my five band quad tower  fell down and 
it’s not working ever since (I might be able to fix it this year :). I 
used some parts of the tower  as a support for the low band antennas. I 
used inverted L for 160,80m and for about half a year 10m vertical for 
40m. Another antenna I used to work with  was a fourth-wave vertical 
from Slavek OK1TN for 20/15/10m, which worked perfectly for a couple of 
years. In the past year though, I changed it for the vertical made by 
Cushcraft R8 (40-6m). I was very much surprised by the performance - it 
works perfectly. My three-element yagi for 20/15/10m is just a few 
meters above my house’s roof, but it also helped a lot.

Unfortunately, my BOG only lasted for half a year before it got 
interfered with by the construction work right next to my house. Due to 
those circumstances, I made a receiving loop by VE3DO (tnx Martin 
OK1RR). Throughout the year, I made 18651 qsos. I’ve never done that 
many in a year under the call sign of “OK”. More than quarter were 
Russia's stations. I worked on a cw with 194 dxcc.

I would like to thank all the stations that made a connection with me. 
Many times, it was a struggle and that is why I highly appreciate all 
the people that had the patience with me while my signal was weak. I 
also couldn’t reach many stations, mainly because of the conditions, 
insufficient performance and other circumstances.

My dear friends, thank you for being active on hf bands during the whole 
year so I could reach out to all of you. The marathon was simply worth 
it. In my honest opinion, evaluating the marathon by the CQ Contest 
rules seems reasonable to me. It’s transparent and nothing complicated, 
I would definitely keep it the same. Lastly,  I have no objections or 
comments regarding the new rules. - I am sure it will be fun and joy to 
meet you again in the bands.


*IK4RQJ Augusto*
I have been ON AIR since 1991 and in 2021 I celebrated my 30th 
anniversary by winning the TBDXC Marathon. For me it was a great 
satisfaction and a great honor.
In January 2021, at the beginning of the DX Marathon, I certainly did 
not think I would end the year with over 12000 QSOs, even if those valid 
for the DX Marathon are only 9734. 4000-5000 QSOs would have been enough 
for me to be happy, I have more than double logged !!!

Also I have achieved the TBDXC EXCELLENCE Award with 208 DXCC countries 
worked in one year. For the DX Marathon I used my ICOM IC-7610, but much 
of the credit I have to give to the antennas (7 elements + 3 elements + 
inverted V dipoles + sloper dipoles) on a tower over 20 meters high. 
Since I live in the open countryside, I am lucky enough not to have 
disturbing noises. My proposal for the future editions of the DX 
Marathon, I had also talked about it with Pete, is to allow the upload 
of the logs at the latest by the 15th day of the month following that of 
the QSOs. For example, QSOs made in January must be uploaded by February 
15th, those made in February by March 15th, and so on. This I ask is to 
avoid that someone remains in the shadows until December and, by 
uploading his log in the last days of the year, can upset the ranking.


*DL3NAA Peter*
My name is Peter, I'm 59 years old, live in Kehl (5 km west of 
Strasbourg; JN38VN) and actually grew up with amateur radio because I 
found the big boxes that were in the shack of my dad, DL3II, 
fascinating. At the age of 16 I got my VHF license (DG2NM), but somehow 
I realized that shortwave is more interesting and so I learned 
telegraphy and passed the «big» license in 1981. Since then I am QRV 
almost only in CW and like the variety of our hobby. Rag chewing, DXing, 
QRQ: there are simply many aspects. Homebrewing or soldering did'tt 
interest me at all in the beginning. That changed when I planned a bike 
trip through France with my YL about 20 years ago and wanted to take a 
small station with me. The FT-817 was too expensive for me and so I 
bought a small kit, the SW-20+ (2 watt at 20 meters). Well, and so I 
became a QRP fan, because I noticed that I reached DX less often, but I 
totally enjoyed both tinkering and radioing with QRP.

I participated in the Ultramarathon 2021 because I wanted to see what I 
can achieve with 5 watts
and a vertical within one year. My goal was 2 million points and it 
reached over 2.7 mill with 4500
QSOs. As with any marathon, there were of course times when I lacked a 
little motivation and I also
found it a pity that there was little competition in the QRP/CW class. 
So I oriented myself in the
course of the year to the intermediate results of the LP/CW class to 
have a comparison possibility
and also participated in several contests to work new stations.

It was a lot of fun, but I'm now also looking forward to taking a calmer 
approach in 2022,
participating in the WARC class and thus being able to spend more time 
with my girlfriend on the
weekends because I won't miss any contests :-) and do more /p-activities.
Many thanks to all who have pricked up the ears to hear my QRP signal!


*HK4KM Guillermo*
Congratulations to my fellow hams who achieved top score in each of the 
categories in the Marathon!  It was a pleasure to participate in the 
QRP-SSB category and win it.

I have been a ham for almost 12 years.  About half of that time working 
QRP with 5 watts or less and much of the time, portable out in the 
countryside with wire antennas, most home-made.  My preferred mode of 
operation is SSB and delve into CW more and more as I learn.  Have been
exclusively working SSB and CW since 2020 so I can say I have become a 
True Blue ham!

Contests are important to me, as well as expedition and DX chasing but 
always QRP and with the simplest wire antennas.  I also hunt POTA 
activations.  My main rigs are the Elad FDM-DUO, the Elecraft KX3 and 
lately the Lab599 TX-500.  I live in Colombia's second largest city with
over 4 million population and operating from the city is terrible for me 
because of the QRM. Hence my move to operating from the countryside 
where noise levels are generally zero.


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