General Rules - update 3 July 2026

1. Safety and Permissions

Activators are strongly advised to seek permission from land owners and to conduct a personal safety assessment before conducting an activation. The listing of of a bunker on our UKBOTA reference list does not in anyway indicate that a bunker, or the vicinity of a bunker, is either safe or legal to enter. Always ask permission. UKBOTA accepts no responsibility for any issues arising from the activation of a bunker, eg. failing to ensure appropriate access to a site or for matters regarding personal safety.

2. Terminology

2. The abbreviation UKBOTA is Copyright and refers to the United Kingdom Bunkers On the Air Award Scheme. For the purposes of UKBOTA, a bunker is 20th Century fortified or hardened structure for the purposes of positional defence, observation or crisis management. Types of bunkers included in the UKBOTA list include: Royal Observer Corps HQ and Observation Posts, Declassified military and civil defence bunkers, storage and utility bunkers, Airfield Battle HQ, blast shelters, air raid shelters and some pillboxes. Many bunkers are undergound, but by no means all. A UKBOTA Bunker ‘reference’ is a bunker listed on the UKBOTA Master List, the latest version of the list can be found at www.bunkerbase.org on the Bunker Dashboard. An activator is a station conducting amateur radio operations from a UKBOTA referenced bunker.  A hunter is a station chasing activator stations, i.e. conducting QSOs with stations located at UKBOTA bunkers as listed in the UKBOTA Master List. VHF in the context of UKBOTA awards refers to any band above, and inclusive of, 6m (50MHz). A QSO between two activators at two different bunkers is referred to as a ‘bunker to bunker QSO’ or ‘B2B’ for short. In some cases it will be possible for an activator to activate more than one bunker at a time. The maximum permitted is 5 at a time. Multi-bunker activation, eg. an activation of 5 bunkers, is often shortened to ‘5fer’ etc.

3. Valid UKBOTA QSO

A valid UKBOTA QSO must be unassisted. Both stations must be able to copy callsigns, signal reports, and confirmations without the assistance of a third-party station. For the purposes of UKBOTA awards, a valid QSO requires that the licensed operator whose personal callsign is being used is the person physically operating the radio equipment and conducting the full QSO exchange themselves. Whilst the QSO exchange above describes the minimum requirement for a QSO many activators will chose to give other information. Where possible it is often useful, and of interest to the hunter, to describe a little about the history/geography of the bunker(s) being activated. The use of WebSDR to receive signal reports under poor band conditions is not permitted. The use of remote stations by hunter is permitted. The use of repeaters is not permitted. Activators and hunters may use any amateur radio band and mode their licence permits. Operating outside individual licence conditions will render a QSO invalid. UKBOTA strongly encourages participants to observe the DX Code of Conduct details of which can be found here: https://www.iaru-r1.org/on-the-air/spectrum-abuse/dx-code-of-conduct/

4. Valid UKBOTA Activation

Generally, an activator requires 25 QSOs on HF or mixed HF/VHF, or 5 on VHF only, to make an activation valid and these activations can be completed over different days. QSO on different bands with the same hunter count as an additional QSO towards the validation requirement. QSO using different modes with the same hunter do not count as an additional QSO towards the validation requirement (unless they occur on a different day). Whilst these general rules cover most awards specific award requirements should also be checked as they may differ. An activator may not activate from the fixed home station even if it falls within the activation zone, there are two exceptions: 1. An activator may activate from their property if it falls within the activation zone if they are operating away from their main shack and using battery power and not using their main station antennas, eg. ‘garden portable’ or operating from your driveway in your car with mobile radio and antenna. 2. An activator may activate from a bunker activation zone, using mains power and a fixed antenna providing that either a Special Event Callsign or Club Callsign is used. The use of /P and /M appended to the callsign is no longer required under UK licence conditions and is, therefore, not mandatory for UKBOTA activations. The use of Regional Secondary callsign prefixes (eg. GM for Scotland) is no longer required following recent changes to UK licence conditions, however, activators are enouraged to use regional prefixes by UKBOTA. An activator must be ‘activating the bunker’, it is not sufficient to ‘know’ that a station is in an activation zone, if they are not specifically conducting a bunker activation, for it to count as a valid UKBOTA QSO. The activation zone for a UKBOTA bunker is 1000m, ie. the activator must be within 1000m from the location of the bunker shown on the UKBOTA list. Where possible many activators like to operate from as close to a bunker as possible, noting the importance of safety and site permissions. A hunter and activator may be within the activation zone of the same bunker for a valid QSO.

5. Activating more than one bunker at a time

Some bunkers are close together and where their activations zone intersect, ie. within the ‘overlap area’ it is possible to activate both bunkers. In some cases up 5 bunkers (the maximum UKBOTA permit) by all overlap and in the area were they *all* overlap then all 5 may be activated for a 5fer.

6. Activating other schemes at the same time as UKBOTA

UKBOTA welcome multi-scheme activations, e.g. where the activation location allows, for the activation of a POTA Park, Lighthouse and UKBOTA bunker simultaneously. Activators are encouraged to check the rules of other schemes for their specific rules and guidelines.
To help keep things clear and focused, we kindly ask that spots are posted on the WWBOTA cluster or bunker-related social media only when the activation includes a bunker. Activations that are parks-only or summits-only should please be spotted via their respective schemes instead. 

7. Multiple personal callsigns

An operator may use any of their own legally-held personal callsigns for activating or hunting — multiple-personal-callsign use is permitted in line with the terms of your licence when hunting to help an activator “over the line”, i.e. the minimum QSO threshold . However, only one QSO per band/mode combination will be credited to the hunter’s UKBOTA account, regardless of which of the operator’s personal callsigns was used for each contact.

8. Multi-user callsigns

The use of club callsigns and special event callsigns is permitted. The operator must either be the Notice of Variation holder (NoV holder, or national equivalent) themselves, or hold explicit, specific permission from them to use that callsign. Note: club callsigns and special event callsigns must not be added as an additional callsign on a personal account, regardless of current or intended usage. A separate account must be created for each such such mutli-operator callsign. This is because special event callsigns may be reissued to different operators over time, and club callsigns by definition are used by more than one operator, so single-operator use at any given point cannot be relied upon as a permanent property of the current callsign user. Using a separate account ensures award credit always reflects either the operator who actually made each QSO, or the club itself — rather than being misattributed to whichever individual happens to hold the account.

9. Callsign prefixes — regional UK callsign prefixes.

The use of regional callsign prefixes is optional (with the exception of UK intermediate ‘2’ callsigns). For example, an operator licensed in England may activate a bunker in Scotland without adopting the Scottish ‘M’ designation (e.g. operating as M0ABC rather than MM0ABC). This applies equally to all UK and Crown Dependency callsign variants, including those for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. Note: this optionality applies only to UK domestic regional prefixes. It does not apply to reciprocal or CEPT visiting operation, where use of the host country’s mandatory callsign prefix, in accordance with CEPT T/R 61-01 as implemented by Ofcom, is required and is not optional.

10. Remote Operation

Note: hunters have no location requirement, so remote operation is permitted provided the station functions as a single coherent unit. Activators must be physically present within the bunker’s activation zone at all times; this requirement cannot be satisfied by any remote arrangement, however configured. 

Hunters are permitted to use a remotely operated station to work bunker activators, provided the transmitter and receiver are co-located with each other (i.e. operated as a single remote station). Using a WebSDR, or any other internet-based remote receiver, to complete part of a QSO is not permitted — this applies whether the remote element is the receiving side, the transmitting side, or both.

 Activators are not permitted to use a remote connection to activate a bunker. This includes, but is not limited to:

a. Connecting remotely to a station located at the bunker — e.g. using a mobile (eg. cellular/WiFi/Internet) connection from home to operate a fixed club station sited at the bunker.

b. Connecting remotely from within the bunker’s activation zone to a station located elsewhere — e.g. using a mobile (eg. cellular/WiFi/Intenet)connection from the bunker to transmit and receive via a home station. c

c. Completing the contact via an internet-linked repeater or gateway (e.g. EchoLink, IRLP, or similar) rather than a direct RF path, even where the activator’s own transmitter and receiver are both physically present at the bunker.

d. Any other arrangement where either the transmitter or the receiver used for the activation is not physically present within the bunker’s activation zone.

Getting help

The best and quickest place to ask for help is via our support tickets system.

• *Actiavtor and Activations data
  * Hunter Data
  * Bunker Data
  
  Each of these can be accessed through a dashboard, a dashboard is just a fancy name for a dedicated webpage.

Introducing the UKBOTA Bunker Atlas. 

One of the things that makes UKBOTA special is the community behind it. Licensed amateur radio operators across the UK activating Cold War bunkers, ROC posts, radar stations and wartime structures — not just logging contacts, but visiting places with real history. For a long time we've wanted a way to capture that knowledge and share it, and today we're doing exactly that.

We're delighted to introduce the UKBOTA Bunker Atlas — a community-built guide to UK bunkers, available now at ukbota.net/atlas.

What is the Atlas?

The Atlas is a living, community-maintained database of bunker cards. Each card brings together everything useful about a specific UKBOTA site — its history, construction, current condition, access notes, activation tips, photos, and a record of how many times it has been activated. Think of it as the field guide we always wished existed when we were planning our own activations.

Cards are linked directly to the WWBOTA database, so coordinates, locator squares and site type are pulled in automatically. When you open a card, you can see the site on an interactive map, browse photos contributed by fellow members, read field reports from activators who have been there, and even get your distance and bearing from your current location.

Built by the community, for the community

The Atlas is only as good as the information members put into it. Any logged-in UKBOTA member can contribute — whether that means writing a description of a site you know well, sharing photos from a recent activation, or submitting a field report about access conditions, parking, antenna options and anything else that might help the next activator.

All contributions are reviewed before they appear publicly, so the information stays accurate and useful. If you've activated a site and learned something others should know, this is the place to share it.

A new way to explore

The Atlas page is designed to be used on any screen — desktop, tablet or mobile. The landing page shows a map of all bunkers that currently have cards, with a live count of how many sites are covered out of the full WWBOTA database. Bunkers updated in the last 24 hours glow on the map so you can see where new information has just been added.

Click any pin and the full card opens alongside the map. You can browse all cards in the sidebar, navigate between them with Prev and Next, and share a direct link to any individual card — useful if you want to point someone to a specific site.

What's there so far

We have made a start, but the Atlas is far from complete — and that's the point. There are over 3,700 bunkers in the UKBOTA database. Each one that gets a card becomes a little more knowable, a little more accessible, and a little more likely to be activated. If you've been to even one of them and have something to add, please do.

How to contribute

Visit ukbota.net/atlas and log in with your UKBOTA account. Search for a bunker reference, open the card, and use the Add Field Report button to share what you know. Photos are very welcome — they really bring a site to life for people who haven't been there yet.

We're looking forward to seeing the Atlas grow. 73 de M0ICR

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