Parks on the Air® ADIF Technical Reference Guide
Original author: W8MSC
Table of Contents
About ADIF for POTA
POTA requires activators to submit their log files in the ADIF format. This document provides some ADIF fields that POTA uses in POTA-specific ways. This document also includes a general illustration of common ADIF fields with examples. The latter part is intended to be explanatory and not limit or redefine the ADIF standard.
Required ADIF fields
At a minimum, POTA requires the following items to tally your QSOs properly:
STATION_CALLSIGN or OPERATOR
STATION_CALLSIGN: This is the callsign given over the air. This may be identical to OPERATOR or omitted for individual activations. Club/group activations must use the club’s callsign.
OPERATOR: This is the callsign of the individual making contact. This may be identical to STATION_CALLSIGN or omitted for individual activations. Club/group activations must include this field.
Each field consists of alphabet characters A-Z, numbers 0-9, and the / character. No other characters, including accents, are allowed here.
Example: <STATION_CALLSIGN:4>N8SL
CALL
CALL: This is the callsign of the hunter. Same allowed characters as STATION_CALLSIGN.
Example: <CALL:5>K8ERS
QSO_DATE
QSO_DATE: This is the date a QSO was started, in UTC.
It is entered as an 8-digit number in YYYYMMDD format, with a 4-digit year, 2-digit month, and 2-digit day.
Future dates are rejected.
The month is entered with 2-digits, with a leading digit of 0 up to September. Numbers less than 01 or more than 12 will result in an invalid month. Example: January is 01, February is 02, through 12 for December. The day is entered with 2-digits, with a leading digit of 0 for the first nine days. Example: the first day of a month is 01, the second day is 02, through 31 for the last day of a month.
Example: July 15, 2019 is recorded as <QSO_DATE:8>20190715
TIME_ON
TIME_ON: This is the time a QSO was started, in UTC. POTA tallies QSOs based on when a QSO was started, not completed.
This can be either 4 or 6 digits, entered as HHMM or HHMMSS, where HH is the hour 00 through 23, MM is minute 00 through 59, and SS for second 00 through 59. Hour and minute are required, while seconds are optional.
Example: <TIME_ON:4>0945 or <TIME_ON:6>094500
BAND
BAND: This is the band the QSO took place.
The band is recorded with the unit measurement. For example, a QSO on 20 meters will be recorded as 20M, not 20.
Most QSOs are simplex. In duplex or cross-band QSOs, such as satellite contacts, specify the activator’s transmission or uplink band in this field.
Example: <BAND:3>20M
MODE or SUBMODE
MODE: This is the mode used to make the QSO.
SUBMODE: This is the submode used to make the QSO.
Valid modes and submodes are listed in the ADIF spec. POTA allows certain expectations as listed in the Parks on the Air rules. POTA only stores a single MODE field; if both mode and submode are provided, submode takes precedence.
Example: <MODE:3>SSB
Optional ADIF fields
Optional ADIF fields support park-specific information. These data are processed for your activation location and park-to-park contacts, primarily when an activator is located at multiple parks during the same UTC day or when many operators contribute to contacts for a club callsign or special event callsign. When the MY_SIG and MY_SIG_INFO fields are missing or invalid, the POTA uploader will prompt the user for the needed information during the upload process.
MY_SIG and MY_SIG_INFO
MY_SIG: Special Interest Group. Insert “POTA” in this field.
Example:
<MY_SIG:4>POTA
MY_SIG_INFO: Specify the POTA park reference number for the activator’s park: the POTA program prefix (K, VE, etc.) followed by a hyphen (-) and then a number.
Example:
<MY_SIG_INFO:7>US-0005 represents Badlands National Park in the United States.
<MY_SIG_INFO:7>CA-0005 represents Banff National Park in Canada.
The following optional fields are used in park-to-park QSO to specify the other activator’s park reference.
SIG and SIG_INFO
SIG: Special Interest Group. Specify “POTA” in this field.
SIG_INFO: The park reference number of the other activator’s park.
A P2P contact with another activator would be logged with: <SIG:4>POTA and <SIG_INFO:7>CA-0008
MY_STATE
MY_STATE: The logging station’s primary administrative subdivision code (e.g., US state, JA prefecture, VE province). If the park being activated crosses administrative lines (state, province, etc.), the uploader will try to use the code in this field to determine the location of the activator. If missing, invalid, or unrecognized, the uploader will prompt the user for this information.
Example of a simple log file
The following short log file is an example of a properly formatted log file.
Parks On The Air Field Logger
<PROGRAMID:17>POTA Field Logger
<PROGRAMVERSION:5>0.2.8
<CREATED_TIMESTAMP:13>20201002 134537<EOH>
<STATION_CALLSIGN:5>W8MSC <CALL:5>W8TAM <QSO_DATE:8>20201002 <TIME_ON:6>134100 <BAND:3>40M <MODE:3>SSB <MY_SIG:4>POTA <MY_SIG_INFO:7>US-3315 <EOR>
<STATION_CALLSIGN:5>W8MSC <CALL:5>N3VEM <QSO_DATE:8>20201002 <TIME_ON:6>134200 <BAND:3>40M <MODE:3>SSB <MY_SIG:4>POTA <MY_SIG_INFO:7>US-3315 <EOR>
<STATION_CALLSIGN:5>W8MSC <CALL:5>W3AAX <QSO_DATE:8>20201002 <TIME_ON:6>134300 <BAND:3>40M <MODE:3>SSB <MY_SIG:4>POTA <MY_SIG_INFO:7>US-3315 <EOR>
<STATION_CALLSIGN:5>W8MSC <CALL:4>N0AW <QSO_DATE:8>20201002 <TIME_ON:6>134500 <BAND:3>40M <MODE:3>SSB <MY_SIG:4>POTA <MY_SIG_INFO:7>US-3315 <SIG:4>POTA <SIG_INFO:7>US-0008 <EOR>
<STATION_CALLSIGN:5>W8MSC <CALL:4>W5RB <QSO_DATE:8>20201002 <TIME_ON:6>134600 <BAND:3>40M <MODE:3>SSB <MY_SIG:4>POTA <MY_SIG_INFO:7>US-3315 <EOR>
<STATION_CALLSIGN:5>W8MSC <CALL:6>HI8ILO <QSO_DATE:8>20201002 <TIME_ON:6>135000 <BAND:3>20M <MODE:3>SSB <MY_SIG:4>POTA <MY_SIG_INFO:7>US-3315 <EOR>
<STATION_CALLSIGN:5>W8MSC <CALL:5>N3NWV <QSO_DATE:8>20201002 <TIME_ON:6>135100 <BAND:3>20M <MODE:3>SSB <MY_SIG:4>POTA <MY_SIG_INFO:7>US-3315 <EOR>
A downloadable version of this sample file is available here for reference.
Each QSO is composed of the station callsign of the activator, the callsign of each hunter, date, time, band, mode, and the POTA fields listing the park being activated. A single space separates fields. The QSO with N0AW describes a park-to-park contact with the park information of the other park listed in the optional fields.