Rules & Awards – BUNKERS ON THE AIR

UKBOTA Rules

This page refers to awards and rules for UKBOTA (UK Bunkers on the Air).

This page contains ‘Quick Links’ to regular awards, Other Awards, General Rules, Old (now obsolete awards) and a note on multischeme activations

Click the image below for the 2025 Bunkerteer Award

These awards are not currently on Quick Links.

DX Award (Activators)

Note this award is for DXCC worked not countries!

Night Owl

This award has been updated and bunkers can now be activated and chased monthly. This award is now for UKBOTA QSO between 1900 and 0400 UTC.

1000/2000 Club (Activators)

Terminology

The abbreviation UKBOTA is Copyright and refers to the United Kingdom Bunkers On the Air Award Scheme.
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 banf above, and inclusive of, 6m (50MHz).

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.
To assist a 1000m activation zone is permissible. UKBOTA are not responsible for activator’s failing to ensure appropriate access to sites or for matters regarding personal safety.

Activations

Bunkers cannot be activated by fixed stations, using mains power, from the home location. ‘However, portable’ and ‘mobile activations from home locations are permitted, eg. from home gardens if they happen to fall in the activation zone.
The use of /P and /M appended to the callsign is no longer required by UK licence condition and therefore not mandatory for UKBOTA activations.
The using of Regional Secondary callsign prefixes (eg. GM for Scotland) is no longer required following recent changes to UK licence conditions, however, activatiors are enouraged to use regional prefixes by UKBOTA.
UPDATE: 2nd December 24. In order to align with WWBOTA rules, where an activation location is covered with with more than 5 activation zones a maximum of 5 bunkers can be activated, ie. the activator choses which 5 they are activating.

Claiming Awards

Stations are not required to apply for UKBOTA awards if not they do not wish to do so, i.e. some stations may wish to enjoy UKBOTA for the simple enjoyment of activating and hunting bunkers.
Activators and hunters wishing track their awards progress may wish to do so using the appropraite ‘dashboards’ at www.bunkerbase.org
Award claims should be made by email to the UKBOTO Awards Manager at awards@ukbota.org. Claims should include your callsign, the award you are level you are claiming and evidence of eligibility (e.g. a screenshot of the appropraite dashboard from BunkerBase).

We actively encourage and support multi-scheme activations. This will make your activation more exciting and rewarding.

No schemes are excluded from this as we are a fully inclusive Award Scheme.

The rules for Advent 24 can now be viewed here: https://bunkersontheair.org/site/advent24/