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The Bunkerfest 2025 summary is here

What is WWBOTA?

WWBOTA is Worldwide Bunkers on The Air. It is an amateur radio activity open to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners worldwide.

WWBOTA is an exciting mix of amateur radio and history enabling radio amateurs to ‘activate’ with portable and mobile operations from historic bunker locations and for hunters and chasers to have QSOs with those activating stations (and should they wish to, to ‘collect’ the special ‘bunker reference’ numbers). Free awards for activating and hunting bunkers are available but it’s also okay if you’re not interested in awards but just want to get involved by having a QSO or shortwave listening. Whatever your approach – have fun!

The WWBOTA Management Team:

* Assists with the coordination of national Bunkers on The Air schemes,
* Maintains the WWBOTA ‘Master List’ and map of bunker references,
* Manages an internal WWBOTA ‘cluster’ and manages the software integration with certain applications and tools,
* Manages WWBOTA awards (see the link in the top menu),
* Offer advice and assistance to potential future national representatives (or teams) wishing to start their own national schemes (see the New Countries menu item above),
* Drink a lot of coffee and the occasional red wine.

What's new in WWBOTA?

International Festival of Bunkers 2025 – Bunkerfest 25
The weekend of 14th and 15th June will see us launch our first ever Bunkerfest! With at least 15 countries activating bunkers and lots of activations planned it promises to be a busy weekend for both hunters and activators.

* Activator Awards are available for activations in members countries.
* Hunter and SWL awards are available for all radio amateurs and shortwave listeners, worldwide.

See the event page here for more information.

List updates and new countries join the WWBOTA family
Our ‘Master List’ of WWBOTA bunkers was updated at 10 June 2025. The new list includes updates from UKBOTA, OKBOTA and PABOTA, plus the addition of the first bunkers from Romania – ROBOTA and Spain – EABOTA. The list can be viewed and downloaded from the ‘List’ page (see menu above)

Welcome to the team!

How to get started as a Bunker Activator

If your country already has a scheme that is part of WWBOTA then it’s relatively straight forward.

✅ Check the country Bunkers on the Air website for information specific to the country you will activate in, for example any local variations to general rules and national scheme logging requirements (if applicable).
✅ You not have to be resident in the country, if your licence permits you to operate in the country then you may operate as a visitor.
✅ To find suitable bunkers to activate a good start point is the map and list on this website (see menu links above). Thanks go to Steve Hiscocks, M1SDH for the WWBOTA map,
✅ Many bunker activators enjoy to, and are encouraged to, activate bunkers at the same time as references for other schemes, e.g. POTA.
✅ Note that each bunker ‘reference’ begins with a ‘B’ and a ‘/’ followed by a country code and then a four digit number. For example, the country code for Belgium iw ‘ON’, so a typical bunker in Belgian will have a reference ‘code’ like ‘B/ON-0123’.
✅ 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.

⚠️ ⛔ Note that neither WWBOTA or any national scheme takes 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.

If your country does not yet have a WWBOTA then unfortunately you are unable to participate as an Activator the present time. However, perhaps you might consider volunteering to run a national scheme and ‘get your country’ on the bunker map? All radio amateurs (and listeners) can participate in the WWBOTA scheme as hunters (chasers) irrespective of whether their country has a national bunkers scheme, see below.

How to get started as a Bunker Hunter or SWL

All radio amateurs and shortwave listeners, worldwide, are very welcome to participate in WWBOTA as hunters (chasers) and to claim free awards.

✅ Find stations calling “CQ Bunkers on the Air” and work them! It’s really that simple!
✅ For WWBOTA Award information see the Awards page linked at the menu at the top of this page
✅ For national Awards (and any logging requirements, if applicable) then see the national webpages linked on this page. Note that not all national Bunkers on the Air members currently offer national awards
✅ Consider using our internal ‘cluster’ linked above to help you find bunker activations. Note that you do not need to register to view the WWBOTA ‘cluster’ or fieldspotter.radio
✅ Read the Bunker Activator guide, much of that information will also be useful to you.

A collection of WWBOTA bunker activations in video

Click any video in the bottom right corner to show in full screen.

(C) 2025 WWBOTA – Worldwide Bunkers on the Air


WWBOTA CLUSTER STATUS

✅Good


Meet the WWBOTA
Management Team

Coordination – M0ICR (Carl)
m0icr @ live.com

Awards – M0XIC (Mark)

Cluster Magic – M1SDH (Steven)

Email for awards:
awards @ wwbota.org

M0ICR

M0XIC

M1SDH


Links we like!

M0TRT (Ian) page, the home of fieldspotter.radio and other useful applications here

Ham2K portable logger (PoLo) here

G5STU (Stuart) Station Master page here
Station Master Portable here

G5TM (Tim) YouTube channel, lots of antenna and portable operation ideas here

K4OGO (Salty Walt) YouTube channel, more antenna and portable operation ideas here

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