The 2025 Marathon
2100z Friday 31 January –– 2100z Sunday 2 February
You may download the Marathon package (summary sheet + tick sheets). Updated: 
Known Special Marathon Callsigns:
What: This is the club’s only scored operating event of the year. The idea is to work as many members, on as many bands as possible. There are bonuses for having a contact with a member on five and six bands, as well as for the number of DXCC entities worked.
When: The first full weekend in February, from Friday at 2100z to Sunday at 2100z. In the years when 1st February falls on a Saturday, the Marathon will begin at 2100z on 31st January. The 2025 Marathon is Jan 31 – Feb 2nd.
Bands: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 & 10m. Only one transmitted signal allowed at one time.
Sections:
There are six sections:
- QRO Open: Maximum legal limit on all bands with no antenna restrictions.
- QRO Restricted: Maximum legal limit on all bands, simple wire and vertical antenna only (no beams).
- Low Open: Output power limited to 100 watts, no antenna restrictions.
- Low Restricted: Output power limited to 100 watts, simple wire and vertical antennas only (no beams).
- QRP Open: Output power limited to 5 watts with no antenna restrictions.
- QRP Restricted: Output power limited to 5 watts with simple wire and vertical antennas only (no beams).
Remote Operation: Members who operate remote stations will be required to indicate this as part of their submission.
Exchange: RST and FOC membership number. Associate members are allowed to participate and should send their membership number without the “A.” For contacts with non-members, log the received membership number as 0000.
Contacts: One QSO point for each member worked per band, for a potential of six points per member. Scoring is based on the membership number received, not the callsign worked. Members are encouraged to respond to calls from non-members, out of courtesy, but no points or multipliers are awarded for non-member contacts. All Marathon contacts now count for Windle credit.
Bonus points:
Five points for the first contact* with each continent – Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, North America, South America.
Two points for the first contact* with each country. The country list includes those of DXCC.
Ten points for contacts* on five bands with a member.
Five additional points for a contact* on a sixth band with that member.
The UK based HQ station – G4FOC or alternative notified call, scores double points for contacts and five/six band bonus points.
* In all cases a contact means a QSO with a member as defined by their unique FOC Number. For country and continent bonus points, the contact is defined by the call the member is using.
Total Score =
- Total members worked plus…
- Total entities worked X 2 plus…
- Total continents worked X 5 plus…
- Total 5 band contacts X 10
- Total 6 band contacts X 5
Entries: (Electronic ONLY):
- Entries must be uploaded no later than 2359z on the first Monday of March. In 2023: March 6th.
- Please submit your log using the upload site: https://marathon.g4foc.org Here you can either upload a log file from your logging programme or the totals from your Tick Sheet.
- Cabrillo or ADIF log files are preferred and logs uploaded in either of these formats will be automatically scored during the upload.
- Only submissions from scored log files are eligible for Awards but Tick Sheet totals will be fully listed in the results tables as well.
- There is a section on the upload page where you can add any soapbox comments that you would like to share with other members.
- You can upload your log as many times as you like, only the last submission will be adjudicated.
- Submissions are always acknowledged by an email to the email address you provided during the submission process – if you don’t receive one, your log hasn’t been received, however please check your junk mail folder before uploading again – just in case.
- Submitting paper logs or PDF scans of paper logs are not accepted.
Software and Online Support
- https://www.g4foc.org/downloads contains constantly updated files supporting Super Check Partial and many other logging program functions.
- DJ5CW’s FOC RBN Server provides spots from the Reverse Beacon Network, which is filtered by FOC member callsigns and can be accessed in different ways. Full details at https://foc.dj1yfk.de
- Marabella, by John G3WGV, is a Windows-based helper application designed to assist with scoring and fixing errors in FOC Marathon logs. It takes an export file (Cabrillo or ADIF) from your logging program and converts it into a fully scored set of HTML files that you can view using your usual browser. Full details at https://marabella.org
Awards:
- The Ron Perks – G4CP Memorial Trophy to the overall winner.
- Plaques to continental winners in; QRO Open, QRO Restricted, Low Open, Low Restricted, QRP Open, and QRP Restricted sections.
- Plaques to the North American West Coast winners in the Open and Restricted sections. For the purposes of the Marathon and all other FOC events, American West Coast is defined as CA, OR, WA, AZ, ID, MT, NV, UT and WY plus the following call areas VE6, VE7, VY1, and KL7.
