The ARRL’s DX Century Club (DXCC) award is Amateur Radio’s most sought after operating award. But applying for it can be a bit pricy. The Croatian Digital Group offers a cheaper award synonym called the DX Country Award. How much cheaper? The award is entirely free!
Like DXCC, the DX Country Award uses DXCC “countries”. These entities are nations, but also lands with enough isolation from their home countries to be considered separate. Defining a country is complicated, and sometimes political. But the list is widely known and used by many other organizations.
The entry level certificate requires contacts with only 50 entities. That’s 50 fewer than required by DXCC. Additional certificates reward contacts for 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 countries. As of February 2024, there are currently 340 defined DXCC entities.
CDG issues the award in digital form only (JPG or PDF) with no printing or shipping costs. The certificate features an historic looking map of the world. Each level award sports a different background color.
To apply for the DX Country Award, and all other Croatian Digital Group awards, you must install the UltimateAAC application on a Windows machine. That application scans your WSJT-X ADIF log file (or any ADIF file emitted by your logging software) and will inform you when you’ve qualified for the award at various levels.