✅ To find suitable bunkers to activate a good start point is the UK Portable Ham Map, see the link on the page and here. Thanks go to Steve Hiscocks, M1SDH for mapping. Steve is also on the UKBOTA Management Team.

✅ Check rules, awards and First Time tip. Note 1000m and typically 25 QSO HF and 10 QSO VHF.

✅ Many bunker activators enjoy to, and are encouraged to, activate bunkers at the same time as references for other schemes, e.g. POTA. The UK Portable Ham Map shows overlays of not only UK bunkers on our ‘Reference list’ but also other popular schemes such as POTA, WWFF and SOTA. A list view of the UKBOTA bunkers, which also includes latitude and longitude, Ordnance Survey Grid Reference, Nearest Postcode and Worked all Britain Square (of the bunker) is here.

✅ Note that each bunker ‘reference’ begins with a ‘B’ and a ‘/’ followed by a country code and then a four digit number. UKBOTA covers bunkers in England (B/G), Scotland (B/GM-), Northern Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.

✅ Most bunker operations centre on 40m and 20m SSB but other bands are increasingly popular including the higher HF bands, and also VHF and above. CW, FT8 and other modes are also popular – give it a go and call “CQ Bunkers on the Air”. There have been bunker activations in SSB, CW, FT8,FT4, RTTY, PSK and SSTV!

✅ You will find it useful to ‘spot’ yourself (or have someone spot you) when you activate. There are various way to do this either through our internal ‘cluster’, which requires registration to spot but not to view (see the menu above). Many like to use the ‘cluster’ version with the embedded (and quite excellent) fieldspotter.radio map (by Ian Renton, M0TRT) which gives an excellent visualization of WWBOTA spots (as well as POTA and other schemes) and a handy band map for finding other bunkers and having a ‘bunker to bunker’ (B2B) QSO.

✅ Spots made on the WWBOTA ‘cluster’ are automatically forwarded to our bespoke WhatsApp Spots and Alerts Group. The WhatsApp group is here. Please note that group is just for spots and alerts, not general chat.

✅ Self-spots, which are automatically forwarded to our internal ‘cluster’ and the WhatsApp Spots and Alerts Group, may be made using the excellent Ham2K Portable Logger.

✅ Finally, watch some of the videos embedded below, they will give you a good idea of what to expect.

⚠️ ⛔ Please Note that UKBOTA  takes NO responsibility for safety or right of access issues. If you are unsure then check with a land owner and never activate inside a bunker, or enter private property, or restricted areas, unless you have permission and it is safe to do so.

Our UKBOTA supporters get slightly earlier notification of UKBOTA breaking news and invited to a VIP lounge for extended discussion on pertinent topics!