Prior to 2012, I had only 7 QSLs from DXCC countries (USA, AK, HI, Canada, France, Germany, and Spain). I wasn’t a DXer, but I had volunteered for years at the W4 QSL Bureau. I got to see QSL cards from all over the world going into the the sorting bins of other hams. I wondered if I would ever get DXCC. Forty two years later, in 2012, after taking a decade off from ham radio (raising kids, working hard, etc), I started chasing DX. Despite having a modest station, by March of 2012, I had a mixed DXCC certificate in hand. Many of them were QRP and CW. After that, I had the bug!
Three years later, I had reached 1000 band-points and earned the first level of the DXCC Challenge award. Just in the nick of time, as Solar Cycle 24 was rapidly faltering. (Thankfully I had also completed 8BDXCC around this same time, so I was mostly looking for 160 meter contacts).
Over the next six years, my DXCC Challenge count slowly increased. While it took two months shy of seven years, today I finally obtained 1500 band-points. Those seven years covered the bottom of Cycle 24 and the beginning of Cycle 25, which made DX far more challenging.
My thanks to Mario YS1GMV, who happened to be #1500, and of course all those before him!
