DX Leaderboard and DX Awards Scheme

Did you know that the WIA runs its DX award scheme and Leaderboard online from its website at WIA.org.au. Easiest way to find more details is to google WIA DX Awards.

The mainstay of the DX Award scheme is the time honoured WIA version of the DXCC award. DXCC in an acronym for Long Distance Century Club. In its most basic form, the DXCC award is an award for contacting and gaining a QSL card (physically or electronically) from at least 100 different DXCC entities. A DX Entity is; a country, or if the country has parts that are separated by more than 500Km a country may have more than one DXCC entity. An example of this is Christmas Island and Cocus Keeling islands. These are both a part of Australia but are separate DXCC entities for the purposes of the award. Other examples include East and West Malaysia and Greece and the island of Crete.

Before digital communications, DXCC was much harder to get and was probably valued higher than now, however the challenge now is to go beyond the first 100 countries and gain DXCC awards on multiple bands, with multiple modes. From a band perspective, there is an award for each single band you attain DXCC with, as well as a 3,5, 7 and 9 band award. For modes, there are Phone (that is that quaint mode the old timers use with a microphone), CW and Data modes. Data modes can be FT8, PSK31, RTTY or any of the myriad of digital modes. A couple of years ago, the WIA also introduced the “Triple Play” category where a country is only counted when you have it confirmed on SSB, CW and a data mode. Whilst the first 100 countries is much easier to attain now, there is no doubt that the highest levels, including the Honour Roll (for working all but 2 to 3 of every single entity) are still great and often life long endeavours. I managed to work my first 100 countries (but not quite get them all confirmed) in my first 12 months as a ham, but it did cost me a year of school that I had to repeat because the DXCC was more attractive than year 11!

In addition to the DXCC awards, there are also awards for working grid squares, working the Antarctic, all VK Call areas (on HF and VHF) and working all continents.

To claim an award, you used to need to carefully keep all your QSL cards, marking off on your paper log each contact confirmed, then providing a log of each entry used for your award, and have someone sign off on the fact that you actually have the cards. It would then go to the awards committee who occasionally would gather to evaluate applications, ask for actual proof if they saw fit, and then you would receive your award in the mail. My first DXCC award (gained after about 30 years in the hobby), took around 12 months from sending off my application to receiving the award. I had to send about 4 cards to the committee (with a stamped return envelope) to check. Thankfully now, we upload our logbooks to the WIA awards site, then follow a simple process of checking logs against Log of the World and eQSL, and for hard copy cards, show a fellow WIA member registered for the award scheme my cards and they hop on line and tick them off. The process for applying for an award once you have attained the level needed, takes 1-3 days, and is largely automated with some manual oversite from the committee.

As an adjunct to the awards scheme, the WIA also maintains annual challenges called the DX and Group Leader boards. These programs use exactly the same process for submission of logs and verification of contacts. In fact if you don’t tick the box to opt out of the leaderboard, you automatically go on the leaderboard when you submit logs for DX awards.

The DX leader board is an annual challenge that pits individual operators against each other to work the most number of entities on the most number of bands and modes, (including triple play), in a given year. There is also a category for the most grid squares worked. The categories are further broken down into an open category, a category for Standard and foundation licensees and a third category for Foundation license operators only. The top 30 operators are displayed on a table on the WIA web site and the results are automatically calculated as soon as anyone uploads a log. I have to say, this challenge is a bit addictive! To run at the top of the ladder, you need a good station, a lot of time, a lot of tenacity and operator skill on all three mode groups. Having said that, the top standard and foundation entrants last year were both VK6s, as was the outright winner, and the most grid squares worked category is something almost anyone can compete in, even with a very modest station.

The Group Leader Board is a category where anyone can form a category and anyone can join that category. The most popular of these by far is the club leader board. As part of your registration on the scheme, you can nominate the club you are a member of (only per participant), and all individual scores are also added together to form a club challenge. Last year (and I think the year before also) our very own Bunbury Radio Club won this award with a significant margin on the runner up.

So…. How do we sign up for this bucket of fun! Firstly, you must be a member of the WIA. Not such a bad thing; you get access to the QSL bureau, you get a cool magazine every two months and you contribute to a national voice for the hobby. And if that wasn’t enough, you can watch jelly wrestling between the WIA and RASA but we don’t talk about that here!

If joining the WIA is not for you, the ARRL also has a DXCC award scheme which is just as sort after – if not more so (it was the first award scheme), and Clublog also runs a leader board program that is also very popular and very similar in style (but not sponsored by your favourite ham business in Perth!).

So, go on, join the WIA, upload your logs occasionally, get your club enthusiastic about it, get the coolest wallpaper available for your shack and… make some noise!