Category Archives: DL-BOTA

DD5LP/P – March 6th 2026 – Activation of DE-0858 Via Sancti Martini NHT and B/DL-1193 Landsberg am Lech Schlossgarage-Atombunker

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Preparation:

Seeing that a bunker that I proposed had been added to the German Bunkers on the Air scheme, I wanted to get to it and activate it as the first operator. Initially, I had planned to combine this one to overlap with a POTA 4-fer in a park south of Landsberg, which would need a “real” portable operation, as the point is on a section of footpath through the wildlife park. I could only get there in a few days, so instead, I decided to “just” activate the bunker, but as I looked at the combined POTA/BOTA map at pota-map.info, I could see there were several areas in Landsberg where both a POTA and the BOTA activation would be possible. As I thought, I might have a hard time getting the needed 15 bunker chaser contacts for qualifying the Bunker, I decided that having the POTA hunters around as well would be a good idea.

When my wife told me she would need to do some shopping in the town centre the next day, the plan was formed. I would drop her off in the centre and then drive up to my spot for 60 to 90 minutes to get the bunker qualified. To keep this simple, I would use the reliable G90 and magnetic-base-mounted HF-PRO2 for the activation.

The Activation

POTA BOTA B/DL-1193 & POTA DE-0858

After dropping my wife off, the run to the planned off-road parking spot took about 5 minutes. As I had not unpacked the radio gear previously, the unpacking from the rucksack and setting up the antenna took another 10 minutes.

I had decided to start on 20 metres and tuning around, there was nothing special, just the usual strong Italian and russian hams. So I checked if the preferred BOTA 20m frequency of 14.310 was free; it was, so I spotted myself in WW-BOTA and put out a CQ. I was surprised by at least six stations coming back to my first call. It seems that Bunkers has gone Bonkers since the last time I activated, just a month ago! I had 20 contacts without a break in callers over 15-20 minutes, finishing with Don G0RQL from Devon, who I often talk to, whether it is SOTA, HEMA, POTA or now BOTA! Manual EA2DT was also in the log, someone else that I know as a chaser across multiple portable award schemes.

Once the pileup finally calmed down and after a couple of CQs with no replies, I decided to give POTA a go. After spotting on the POTA cluster, I got no calls on 20m. It seems that one of my BOTA contacts spotted me on POTA, as I was announcing that I was both near a Bunker and on a POTA trail. So, of the rush of calls, I cannot tell who was calling because of BOTA and who because of POTA!

As I had plenty of time, I decided to put out a POTA call on 40m. That was also hard work, with just four more contacts getting into the log.

I could not complain, with 28 contacts in the log, it was far more than I had expected and going by the reports I received, the simple 20W G90 and the HF20 loaded whip antenna continue to perform well.

Once at the planned location, partway into the forest on an ice-covered road, the setup was quick, with just the antenna needing to be put on the 3-magnet mount on the car roof, with the coil set to the newly calibrated value for 20m. I had intended to start on 20 metres and then head to 40 metres, as I got so many contacts on 20m, the 40m action never happened.

I did announce that my location was also a Bunker, and when a Bunker chaser actually called me, I asked him to spot me on the WWBOTA site, as I could not.

Photos:

DE-0858 / B/DL-1193

  • Location & antenna
  • Around the location
  • Around the location
  • Around the location

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-90 radio.
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna.
  • Linked dipole antenna (not used).
  • 6 metre fibreglass pole (not used).
  • 3-magnet car roof mount
  • Single magnet mount (not used).
  • 8 Ah LifePO4 battery.
  • 2 x 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 batteries (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Contacts Map

LOG: POTA DE-0858 / BOTA B/DL-1193

Conclusions:

I was surprised at getting so many contacts for Bunkers. For a short-notice activation, the “standard” setup worked reliably again. The weather was fine for a “real” portable activation today; however, the available time was not

73 ’til the next activation!

DD5LP/P – February 10th 2026 – Activation of DE-1067 Moränelandschaft zwischen Ammer and stannberger sees plus DL-BOTA Bunker B/DL-0327 Warnamt X

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Preparation:

Again, a limited-time “fill-in” activation while my wife had an appointment with her orthopaedic specialist in Weilheim at the southern end of Ammersee. Checking the few local bunker sites that are currently in the DL-BOTA site, I came across Warnamt X, not too far away and a location that I know, as we recently went to an art exhibition there – the buildings above the civil defence bunker now house an artist’s commune.

Although the bunker is excluded from the POTA park DE-1067, the fact that one may activate within one kilometre of the bunker made a combined activation of POTA and DL-BOTA possible by parking just off the access road to the commune.

So that was the plan, with, as usual, all radio gear loaded and ready for operation in the car the day before, I was ready for this combined BLOTA/PLOTA activation. I also packed my Xiegu X-6200 radio and a second magnetic antenna mount as backups. I added an alert on both POTA and DL-BOTA for the activation.

The Activation

POTA DE-1067 & BOTA B/DL-0327

After dropping my wife off, the run to the planned off-road parking spot took about 20 minutes, mainly because of traffic stuck behind two slow-moving tractors. We had planned that my wife’s appointment would take about an hour and she would stay in a local cafe for 30 minutes afterwards, giving me 90 minutes for the trip to, radio activation and trip from the location.

Once at the planned location, partway into the forest on an ice-covered road, the setup was quick, with just the antenna needing to be put on the 3-magnet mount on the car roof, with the coil set to the newly calibrated value for 20m. I had intended to start on 20 metres and then head to 40 metres, as I got so many contacts on 20m, the 40m action never happened.

I did announce that my location was also a Bunker, and when a Bunker chaser actually called me, I asked him to spot me on the WWBOTA site, as I could not.

After spotting myself on POTA (BOTA spotting did not work from my phone for some reason), I had 75 contacts in almost exactly an hour, and all on one frequency on 20m. The radio and antenna worked perfectly, and the level of QRM was nowhere near as high as it had been in previous activations – perhaps the fact that the “WWA” award scheme month-on-air has finished was a big help. The high number of contacts did not include any DX contacts but lots of contacts from locations closer to me than I normally would get, so it seems that after recent heavy solar activity, the skip distance was short. As you will see from the contacts map, coverage was 360 degrees over all of Europe.

I had to end the activation as I had run out of time, but hopefully I will have given some Bunker operators this ATNO location (this was its first activation in the scheme).

Photos:

DE-1067 / B/DL-0327

  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • Antenna.
  • Station.

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-90 radio.
  • Xiegu X6200 radio (not used)
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna.
  • Linked dipole antenna (not used).
  • 6 metre fibreglass pole (not used).
  • 3-magnet car roof mount
  • Single magnet mount (not used).
  • 8 Ah LifePO4 battery.
  • 2 x 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 batteries (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Logs:

Contacts Map

POTA DE-1067

DL-BOTA B/DL-0327

Conclusions:

I was surprised at getting so many contacts in just an hour, but happy that the “standard” setup is now working reliably again. Hopefully, the weather conditions will improve soon, so that I can get out and operate “real” portable, away from the car, again.

73 ’til the next activation!

DD5LP/P – January 19th 2026 – Activation of DE-0375 Sheridan Park and 2-fer POTA DE-0374 Wittelsbacher Park (With DL-BOTA B/DL-1191 Rosenauberg Bunker) & DE-0597 Augsburger Jakobsweg

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Preparation:

Yet another “fill-in” activation after dropping my wife off at her Physio rehab centre. Since the last activation, I have found that the HF-PRO2 antenna on the smaller (1-magnet) roof mount on 40m works better (SWR 1.4:1) than on my normal larger (3-magnet feet) roof mount (SWR 2:1). SWR values on 20 metres is similar on both mounts – I presume the available ground plane of the car roof is just sufficient on 40m when using the smaller mount. So, in these activations, I planned to use the single magnet base (but took the larger one “just in case”). Apart from that, the radio was the G90 as usual, but again I took the X6200 as backup.

As usual, all radio gear was loaded and ready for operation in the car the day before, for these two PLOTA activations.

The Activations

POTA DE-0375 Sheridan Park

After dropping my wife off, the run up into the city of Augsburg was uneventful and took less than 30 minutes. The exact location that I had scouted out online (a parking spot for sharing cars) was in the middle of being re-built so I found an alternative location to park, in the turnaround at the end of Otto-Shalk-Strasse.

After setting up the antenna on the car roof, I messaged Ernie VK3DET in Australia, who had kindly agreed to take a listen for me, and, as it was 30 minutes earlier than I had expected, there was a good chance that I could make a long path 20m contact with my 20 watts of sideband and loaded whip configuration. It wasn’t to be …

When I turned the radio on, I could hear nothing – not even static noise. At first, I thought that I was in an RF blackout (actually, that came some 18 hours later along with a G4 major solar storm). When I texted Ernie, he said he was hearing some of the well-known Spanish stations, so not only was the band not closed and it appeared the long path was still open.

I changed radios from the G90 to the X6200 – same situation – I was hearing exactly nothing on 20m and 40m. I had tested the antenna mount after repairing it a few days earlier, but despite that, I decided to change back to the three-magnet abse, and as soon as I attached the coax feeder from that, I started hearing a band full of stations. The obvious conclusion was that the coax cable had broken again, perhaps this time the braid rather than the centre core. However, later, when I tested at home, there was DC connectivity along the core and braid between the plug and the socket and no short between the two. So why this suddenly stopped working remains a mystery at the moment.

For this activation, I was happy to work with the base that was working and stuck to 20 metres rather than going to 40 metres. Contacts were made all around Europe, but no further afield; the nearness of houses at the side of the park may have been part of the reason for this. In summer, I could have set up in the park, but with temps down around -5°C, this activation stayed located in the car.

Contacts were hard to get, not only because of the location but also because of the high-powered stations on the band taking part in the “World-Wide-Award”. Calling this activity an “Award” rather than a contest (which it obviously is) allows it to take place every day, not just on the weekends, and to take place on the WARC bands where contests are not permitted. After all of the problems, I eventually got my needed 10 contacts in just over an hour, helped greatly by Don (G0RQL) calling three times under different call signs.

POTA DE-0374 Wittelsbacher Park & DE-0597 Augsburger Jakobsweg

After lunch at a German restaurant at the main (Riegle) Brewery (to be recommended as a friendly, well-run restaurant), I headed out to the next POTA location. Or at least I would have, had Google Maps not decided to play up in the car. I set off anyway in the direction I thought I should be going (wrong! Once the navigation program started working, I had to double back on my route, and it turned out the next POTA location was only a few minutes’ drive from the restaurant and railway station).

This location was as I had expected, although distances between the recycling “igloos” and the entry to the famous Rosenauberg bunker which, I added as a missing BOTA-DL Bunker later, so far very few bunkers in Bavaria have been included on Bunkers on the Air.

I still had the three-magnet base on the roof from the last activation, so the setup was very quick, which was good as I had limited time to gather the needed 10 contacts before having to head off to collect my wife from the outpatients physio centre. Don helped once again with THREE calls under different call signs. I put out several CQs but had to keep moving because of QRM from those taking part in this WWA contest month. The best contact from this 2-fer was with W1OW in MA, USA. In fact, he was also the only non-UK caller to this activation!

Photos:

DE-0375

  • Views around the park.
  • Views around the park.
  • Views around the park.
  • Views around the park.
  • Views around the park.
  • Views around the park.
  • Views around the park.
  • Park Sign
  • Views around the park.
  • Location & Antenna
  • Station.

DE-0374 & DE-0597 & B/DL-1191

  • Park Entrance
  • Park Views.
  • Spot the Gray Squirrel…
  • Park Views.
  • Park Views.
  • Park Views.
  • Park Views.
  • Park Views.
  • Park Views.
  • Park Views.
  • Entrance to B/DL-1191 Rosenauberg Bunker
  • Antenna

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-90 radio.
  • Xiegu X6200 radio
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna.
  • 3-magnet car roof mount and single magnet mount.
  • 8 Ah LifePO4 battery.
  • 2 x 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 batteries (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

POTA DE-0375

POTA DE-0374/DE-0597

Conclusions:

It’s good to get these two semi-local parks off my to-do list, but the problem with the single magnet base mount needs to be investigated further. Of course, an intermittent fault is hard to find and given that I have an absolutely new single-magnet antenna mount, perhaps I should not waste my time and simply throw the faulty one away?

73 ’til the next activation!