1.   Safety and Access

  • Activators are responsible for ensuring that they have lawful access to the location they intend to activate and should obtain permission from the property owner or responsible authority wherever required, conforming to both State & Federal Law. 
  • Before starting an activation, participants should assess the site for potential hazards and take appropriate precautions.
  • The inclusion of a bunker or other qualifying structure in the USBOTA reference database does not mean that the site is safe, accessible, or legally open to the public. 
  • USBOTA strongly encourages all participants to put personal safety and lawful access ahead of completing an activation. USBOTA accepts no responsibility for injury, loss, damage, trespass, or any other consequence arising from an activation, including inadequate site access arrangements or failure to assess local hazards. 
  • *Some U.S. military sites remain federally controlled even if abandoned.
  • **Civil Defence sites may be owned by counties or municipalities.

2.   Terminology

  • USBOTA refers to the United States Bunkers On The Air award programme. For USBOTA purposes, a bunker is a fortified, hardened, or protected structure constructed primarily for defence, observation, civil defence, emergency management, communications, storage, or related purposes. Structures that may qualify for inclusion in the USBOTA reference list can include, but are not limited to:
  • Military and former military bunkers
  • Civil defence facilities
  • Command and control facilities
  • Hardened communications installations
  • Airfield and military installation bunkers
  • Blast shelters
  • Fall Out shelters
  • Hardened observation posts
  • Storage and utility bunkers
  • Other historically significant fortified or hardened structures 
  • Nike missile sites 
  • SAGE radar stations
  • Endicott/Taft coastal batteries
  • WWII harbour defence forts
  • Not all USBOTA locations are underground.
  • A USBOTA reference is a qualifying location listed in the official WWBOTA / USBOTA reference database. 
  • An activator is an amateur radio operator conducting an activation from within the permitted activation zone of a USBOTA reference.
  • A hunter is an amateur radio operator attempting to make qualifying contacts with USBOTA activators.
  • For USBOTA awards, VHF means any amateur band at or above 6 metres (50 MHz).
  • A contact between two activators operating from two different USBOTA references is known as a Bunker-to-Bunker QSO, commonly abbreviated to B2B.
  • Where qualifying locations are sufficiently close together, an activator may be able to activate more than one reference simultaneously. The maximum number permitted is five. A multi-location activation is commonly referred to as a 5-fer when five references are activated together.

3.   Valid USBOTA QSOs

  • A qualifying USBOTA QSO must be made directly between the two participating stations without assistance from a third-party station. Both stations must independently be able to exchange and confirm the required information, including callsigns and signal reports. For award purposes, the operator using a personal callsign must be the person actually operating the radio equipment and conducting the complete QSO. Unattended operation is not permitted.
  • The basic QSO exchange is sufficient for award credit, although activators are encouraged to provide additional information where practical. Information about the history, purpose, or location of the bunker can add considerable interest for hunters.
  • The use of WebSDR or similar internet-based receivers to obtain signal reports or complete part of a QSO is not permitted.
  • Hunters may use an appropriately configured remote amateur radio station, subject to the remote-operation provisions in these rules.
  • Repeaters may not be used for qualifying USBOTA QSOs.
  • Participants may use any amateur radio band or mode permitted by their licence. All operation must remain within the conditions and privileges of the operator’s licence. A QSO made outside those conditions will not qualify for USBOTA credit.
  • USBOTA encourages all participants to operate courteously and to follow recognised amateur-radio operating practices, including the principles of the DX Code of Conduct.

4.   Valid USBOTA Activations

  • Unless a particular award specifies different requirements, an activation normally requires:
  • 25 qualifying QSOs when operating HF or a combination of HF and VHF; or
  • 5 qualifying QSOs when operating VHF only.
  • The QSOs required to validate an activation do not necessarily have to be completed on a single day.
  • Contacts with the same hunter on different bands may count as separate QSOs toward the activation requirement.
  • Contacts with the same hunter using different modes do not normally provide an additional QSO toward the activation requirement unless the contacts take place on different days.
  • Individual awards may contain additional or different requirements, so participants should check the rules for the specific award they are pursuing.
  • Operating from Home
  • An activator may not normally activate a USBOTA reference from their fixed home station, even where their home happens to fall inside the activation zone.
  • There are two exceptions:
  • Portable operation from the property
  • An operator may activate where their property falls within the activation zone if they are operating away from their normal amateur-radio station, using portable equipment and battery power, and are not using their main station antennas.
  • Examples include operating from a garden with a portable antenna or operating from a vehicle in the driveway using mobile equipment.
  • Club or Special Event operation
  • An activation may be conducted from within the USBOTA activation zone using mains power and a permanent or fixed antenna where an authorised Club Callsign or Special Event Callsign is being used.
  • Activation Zone
  • The standard USBOTA activation zone is 1,000 metres (1 km) from the location recorded for the USBOTA reference.
  • The activator must be physically located within this distance of the reference location while conducting the activation.
  • Where site conditions permit, activators are encouraged to operate as close to the actual structure as practical, while always giving priority to safety and lawful access.
  • An activator must be actively conducting a USBOTA activation. Simply being located within the activation zone, without actually undertaking an activation, does not make contacts with that station valid for USBOTA.
  • A hunter and an activator may both be located within the activation zone of the same USBOTA reference and still make a valid QSO.

5.   Activating Multiple USBOTA References

  • Some USBOTA references are located close enough together that their 1 km activation zones overlap.
  • Where an activator is physically located within the common overlap area of two or more references, those references may be activated simultaneously.
  • A maximum of five USBOTA references may be activated as part of a single simultaneous activation.
  • Where five references all share a common activation area and the activator is physically located within that common area, the activation may be claimed as a 5-fer.

6.   Activating Other Award Programmes

  • USBOTA supports and welcomes multi-programme activations.
  • Where the location and individual programme rules permit, an activator may simultaneously activate a USBOTA reference and another amateur-radio award location, such as a park, lighthouse, summit, historic site, or other qualifying location.
  • Participants are responsible for checking the rules of the other award programme before claiming credit for a combined activation.
  • To keep spotting and cluster information relevant to USBOTA activity, participants are asked to post USBOTA-related spots only where the activation includes a USBOTA reference.
  • Activations relating solely to another award programme should be spotted through the appropriate programme or its associated spotting system.

7.   Multiple Personal Callsigns

  • An operator may use any legally held personal callsign for activating or hunting, provided its use complies with the operator’s licence conditions.
  • An operator may use more than one of their own personal callsigns when hunting, including where doing so assists an activator in reaching the required QSO threshold.
  • However, only one QSO per band/mode combination will be credited to a hunter’s USBOTA account, regardless of which of the operator’s personal callsigns was used for those contacts.

8.   Club and Special Event Callsigns

  • Club callsigns and authorised Special Event Callsigns may be used for USBOTA activations and hunting.
  • The operator must either be authorised to use the callsign or have the explicit permission of the person or organisation responsible for that callsign.
  • Club and Special Event Callsigns should not be added to an individual’s personal USBOTA account as an additional personal callsign.
  • A separate USBOTA account should be maintained for each multi-user callsign.
  • This ensures that award records remain correctly associated with the callsign and the activity conducted under it, rather than being permanently linked to one individual who may only temporarily be authorised to use that callsign.

9.   Callsign and Operating Requirements (U.S. FCC Part 97)

  • Operators must use their FCC‑issued callsign in accordance with 47 CFR §97.119, which requires clear station identification at least once every 10 minutes during a communication and at the end of the final transmission.
  • Any portable, mobile, or location‑based designator (such as “/P”, “/M”, or “/portable”) may be used voluntarily, but is not required by FCC rules. Operators may add such suffixes when they feel it provides useful context, but USBOTA does not require them.
  • The validity of a USBOTA activation is not determined by the presence or absence of a portable/mobile suffix. What matters is that the operator complies with all applicable FCC Part 97 rules, including correct station identification and operating within their licence‑class privileges.
  • When a non‑licensed person speaks over an amateur station, the licensed operator acts as the control operator and is fully responsible for identification and all transmitted content, as required by §97.7 and §97.119.

10.   Remote Operation

  • Hunters are not subject to a geographic location requirement and may therefore use a remotely operated amateur-radio station to contact USBOTA activators, provided the remote station operates as a single coherent station.
  • The transmitter and receiver used by the hunter must be co-located as part of that remote station.
  • A WebSDR, online receiver, or other internet-based receiving system cannot be used to provide the receiving portion of a qualifying USBOTA QSO.
  • Activator Remote Operation
  • An activator must be physically present within the USBOTA activation zone while conducting the activation.
  • Remote operation cannot be used to satisfy this requirement.
  • This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Remote access to equipment located at the USBOTA site
  • An operator may not remain at home or elsewhere and connect over the internet, cellular network, Wi-Fi, or similar service to operate a radio station physically located at the USBOTA reference.
  • Remote operation of an off-site station
  • An operator physically located within the USBOTA activation zone may not use an internet or other remote connection to transmit and receive through a station located somewhere else.
  • Internet-linked repeaters and gateways
  • A qualifying USBOTA contact may not be completed through an internet-linked repeater or gateway such as EchoLink, IRLP, or similar systems instead of a direct RF path.
  • This remains the case even when the activator has a physical transmitter and receiver at the USBOTA location.
  • Other remote arrangements
  • Any arrangement in which the transmitter or receiver being used for the activation is not physically located within the USBOTA activation zone is not permitted.
  • The fundamental requirement is that the activator and the radio equipment used for the activation are physically present within the activation zone.