DX Marathon
The CQ DX Marathon is an annual award for working as many DXCC entities and CQ zones as possible within a calendar year. Wait and Pounce's Marathon mode turns it into an entity-hunter: it will reply to any station from a DXCC entity you still need this year, even if that exact callsign isn't on your wanted list.
What it does
When Marathon is enabled for a band, a decoded station becomes a reply candidate if its DXCC entity has not yet been worked this year. When a station is chosen on this basis, the focus label shows the / MARATHON suffix.
Configuring it
In Settings → DX Marathon you get a grid of per-band toggle buttons plus a special Unlimited button:
- Per-band buttons — enable Marathon hunting on specific bands. The "need an entity" check is evaluated per band (you need the entity once on each enabled band).
- Unlimited — a mutually-exclusive mode where you need each entity only once on any band. Selecting Unlimited disables the individual per-band buttons.
How "needed" is decided
Marathon need is read from your loaded logbook:
- Per-band mode — an entity is needed if you haven't worked it this year on this band.
- Unlimited mode — an entity is needed if you haven't worked it this year on any band.
As you complete contacts, worked entities for the year are tracked so the app stops chasing an entity once you've worked it. Your live logbook stays the source of truth for what you've worked, so reloading your log always restores accurate progress.
Marathon vs Wanted vs Grid
These can all be active at once and feed the same reply engine:
- Wanted chases specific callsigns/zones you typed.
- Marathon chases any station from a needed entity.
- Grid Tracker chases new grid squares.
Their relative importance is set in Choosing Who to Reply To — by default a wanted callsign outranks a marathon entity, which outranks a new grid.