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

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!