Bring in a chaser friend! The key to start activating in BOTA

Beaches On The Air is a relatively small programme that competes with many others such as SOTA and POTA that also ecourage portable amateur radio operations. In some programmes you get points for the number of references you activate and in others you get them for the number of QSOs you make and self declare.

In Beaches On The Air, you get your points from the number of chasers that confirm a QSO with you as part of your activation. This is a feature of our programme that some see as a disadvantage and others as an advantage, and the key to one or the other very much depends on your understanding of our system. If I made 200 QSOs but only get a couple of confirmed chaser reports, does it mean that 99% of my activity was useless? Not al all. It just means that the metric we use is based on chaser reports, which is more objective than a measure based on self-declared qso counts alone, and also promotes interaction between activators and chasers. We understand that our metric is stricter than that of other programmes, but we adapted our award system accordingly so that you will receive honours at seven different levels of achievement, starting with one badge of honour for the first chaser report you receive!

The key to success in our program is bearing in mind the concepts of reach and engagement, and the link between both. The number of QSOs you make is a metric of the reach of your activation. The number of chaser reports confirmed on our site is a measure of chaser engagement. The link between both is the engagement rate. Our point system is based on chaser engagement, so if you want to maximise your chances of success, you should focus not only on maximising your qso count, but also your chaser engagement rate.

There are very few chasers in Beaches On The Air, especially when you are starting out. What helps a lot for everyone, but for first activators in particular, is to bring in a chaser friend. This will not only help you with the general success of your activation, but it will also help you better understand the whole process and earn your first badge of honour!