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
 
  1. AA3B Joseph «Bud» W Trench
42413967 points, 31758 QSO, 661 DXCC, 178 Zones, 50553 QSO points
 
  1. 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
 
  1. IK0NMJ Valter Brilli
7539795 points, 7399 QSO, 550 DXCC, 135 Zones, 11007 QSO points
 
  1. 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
 
  1. YO8DOH Stefan Mancas
11858330 points, 12732 QSO, 524 DXCC, 146 Zones, 17699 QSO points
 
  1. SN5J Janusz Czerwinski
9571718 points, 11463 QSO, 510 DXCC, 137 Zones, 14794 QSO points
 
SSB Low Power
  1. IK4RQJ Augusto Baldoni
11630244 points, 9734 QSO, 656 DXCC, 143 Zones, 14556 QSO points
 
  1. IU1HJF Rubens Brusati
2175660 points, 3558 QSO, 293 DXCC, 102 Zones, 5508 QSO points
 
  1. 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
 
  1. EA3O Santiago Sanyé Gonzáles
224064 points, 791 QSO, 113 DXCC, 31 Zones, 1556 QSO points
 
  1. 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
 
  1. DG4SFS Ulrich «Uli» Lebegern
22932 points, 219 QSO, 79 DXCC, 19 Zones, 234 QSO points
 
  1. 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 [email protected]

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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