DXCC gets most of the attention as the classic ham radio award chase, but it’s far from the only one. IOTA and County Hunting both offer a genuinely different kind of goal, one geographic, one domestic, and both worth knowing about even if DXCC isn’t your primary focus.
IOTA: chasing islands, not just countries
Islands on the Air, administered by the RSGB, tracks contacts with specific island groups around the world, each assigned its own IOTA reference number. What makes IOTA interesting is that it cuts across DXCC entities in both directions: a single DXCC country can contain dozens of separate IOTA island groups, while some IOTA references span territory belonging to more than one DXCC entity. For DXers who’ve worked most of the accessible DXCC entities, IOTA offers a genuinely fresh set of targets, since many island groups are difficult, expensive expeditions to actually activate.
County Hunting: DXCC for the domestic operator
USA County Hunting tracks contacts with all 3,077 counties (and county-equivalents) in the United States, run under the umbrella of the CQ County Hunters organization. It’s essentially DXCC turned inward, rewarding contacts with the full breadth of US geography rather than international entities, and it has its own dedicated activator culture, with mobile operators specifically driving county lines to activate rare counties for chasers back home.
Why these are worth pursuing
Both programs give you a genuinely different kind of operating goal from straight DXCC chasing, and both have active, welcoming communities of dedicated activators and chasers who make working toward these awards more social than a solo pursuit. If you’ve plateaued on DXCC progress or just want a new angle on the hobby, either IOTA or County Hunting is a low-cost way to give your operating a fresh sense of purpose.
Related reading: Special Event Stations · Grayline DXing · State QSO Parties