Beaches On The Air - BOTA

The site has not been down for everyone. Only for some users, and usually active users like you. Regular vistors could access the site with no problems.

The hosting provider was not giving us any satisfactory solution, so we have just migrated to a new host.

We expect www.beachesontheair.com will work for everyone soon. In fact, it is already working for many, and I hope it will be in your case too.

Your feedback will be much appreciated.

73 de Diego EC1CW

 

The number of activators is growing: http://www.beachesontheair.com/activators

 

Hi, can you kindly add our country, Malaysia?

I have visit the "Countries & Entities" page. Yet, I cannot find any beaches of Malaysia. Thank you.

 

All of SE Asia seems to be missing.
I will be operating in Vung Tau Front Beach until May 13 as XV9WJR.
Can I play, or is this US/Euro centric?

BJ
WA7WJR
XV9WJR

 

You are right. I'm not sure whether the problem is in their main website or anything else.

 

Beaches On The Air is a global program that has more than 31,000 beaches listed all around the world. We make every effort to be as inclusive as possible, by sponsoring the creation of beach lists where they do not exist, and by allowing the addition of individual beaches where full lists cannot be created. Our latest beach lists have been for KwaZulu-Natal-South Africa, Hong Kong, and Belgium. Indonesia has also been very active lately through the activation of individual beaches.

 

This program means well but needs more work before it can be widely understood or accepted.

Other programs eg SOTA and WWFF have guidelines as to what summits/reserves qualify and which don't.

What defines a 'beach'? Where does a beach start and where does one finish? Are there easy to understand criteria for this?

The "international impact of the activation" at http://www.beachesontheair.com/content/single-beach-listing-application is difficult to satisfy for big countries where working any other country is long-haul DX.

And what's the deal with asking for cash ($5 or $10 - it's not clear!) in exchange for getting a new beach listed? http://www.beachesontheair.com/content/single-beach-listing-application

It doesn't look right to be taking money from hams without explaining things a bit more.

 

We have listed 31,000+ beaches so far and continue adding country lists every year, using as complete and objective data as possible, often from environmental protection agencies. There are some people for whom this is not enough, and ask for the inclusion of their favourite beach that is absent from an existing list.

Analysing individual beach listing applications is very costly, and we want to discourage that by means of an application fee and more stringent requirements, such as the ones you mention, which do not apply to regular activations. The purpose is to encourage people to help us find complete and objective beach lists for their countries that everyone can benefit from.

Australia is a case in point. For that country we managed to put together beach lists for two regions only, but not for the rest of the country. Yet we know that there is an Australian professor at Sydney, Andrew Short, that has compiled a list of 11,671 beaches (https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/introducing-australias-professor-of-beaches/). If anyone gets us that list instead of pushing for the inclusion of their favourite beach, they will pay 0€ for 11K beaches for them and their fellow Australian hams instead of 5€ for one beach, and everyone will be happier.

Having said all that, we appreciate the content and the constructive approach of your comment. We acknowledge that Beaches On The Air is far away from other programmes such as SOTA, for instance, and that there is a lot of work to do. Let's do it together. Come join us at https://www.facebook.com/groups/beachesontheair/!