POTA upload & batch windows

You finished the sitting. The ADIF is on the phone or the laptop. The question is not “did the QSOs happen?” — it is “what should I expect after I hit upload on pota.app?”

This page owns the day around the QSO for activators: when to upload, what confirmation means versus awards lag, how to retry without panic, and how to keep the file. It does not rebuild ingest. getontheair.app is independent — not affiliated with Parks on the Air. Official rules and upload paths live on docs.pota.app and pota.app. Confirm those pages before you treat anything here as policy.

What a “batch window” means for you

Community report (opinion, not an SLA): operators have long talked about a Period of Log Batch Jobs roughly 03Z–11Z, when uploads can sit longer than usual and sometimes need helpdesk attention to unstick. A March 2026 community opinion article repeated that framing and summarized board messaging about a platform rewrite aimed at log ingestion. Its source site was offline when we checked on 2026-10-08, so we no longer link it. Treat the window as operator folklore, not a guarantee of delay or of instant processing outside it.

What that means in the field:

• Upload when you can. Do not rebuild the day’s log to dodge the clock. A clean ADIF uploaded during the window is still the right file.
• Upload receipt ≠ awards. Official getting-started copy on docs.pota.app says you will typically see stats within a few hours and that awards populate through afterward. That is not a hard SLA — status and award counters can lag further when the platform is busy or when a file is stuck in a batch.
• Keep the ADIF. Do not delete the Doctor export, the Polo POTA pack, or the paper photos until pota.app shows the activation and you are satisfied. Re-upload or helpdesk replacement needs the same file.

Close-out order (unchanged)

1. Export from the logger (Polo POTA pack per park on a 2-fer; not Full).
2. Run ADIF Doctor — parks, 2-fers, hygiene. Fix the file before upload.
3. Upload on pota.app → My Log Uploads (under your callsign menu). Deep link when signed in: pota.app/#/user/logs.
4. Optional: Recap from the Full ADIF after Doctor — Recap is not the awards path.

Filename habit hunters recognize: CALLSIGN@PARK-YYYYMMDD.adi (example style on the awards chapter). Official submit paths and error recovery: Submitting Logs · Rules / logging requirements · docs.pota.app home.

If awards or status look stuck

1. Re-check My Log Uploads for accept / reject / pending — do not assume silence means “lost forever.”
2. If the uploader rejected the file, fix it in Doctor and upload again. Do not invent QSO rows in a text editor.
3. If you spot an error within 24 hours of upload, use Delete Log on My Log Uploads and upload the corrected ADIF yourself. After that, or if the file is accepted but stats/awards never move past a long wait, use the site’s Contact Support / Request Support path next to that log (Submitting Logs — Fixing errors). Volunteers will not rewrite your QSOs for you; they remove a bad upload so you can put a corrected ADIF back.
4. Keep the same ADIF on disk (and a paper photo backup). Panic-rebuilding ingest or emailing random coordinators is not the normal path — self-upload is.

Hunters do not upload. Hunter awards come from activator logs.

Doctor before upload

ADIF Doctor is hygiene, not a substitute for pota.app:

• Explode comma 2-fers into one file per park
• Confirm MY_SIG_INFO / park references
• Prefer the privacy-stripped POTA pack for My Log Uploads — do not upload Full (names/grids for Recap/LoTW)

More destination detail: Award platforms · logging hub: Logging.

The new pota.app (October 2026)

The rewritten site became the main pota.app on October 15, 2026 (pota.app changelog). Two upload changes matter for close-out:

• Checked in your browser first. My Log Uploads now validates each QSO in your browser and catches a duplicate file before it is sent (changelog, Oct 13). Fix what it flags in Doctor, then upload again.
• 24-hour self-delete. You can delete a processed log yourself within 24 hours of uploading it; the Delete Log button shows how much time is left (changelog, Oct 15). Delete, then upload the corrected ADIF.

After 24 hours, use the support button next to that log on My Log Uploads. As of 2026-10-19, docs.pota.app — Fixing errors still describes only the Request Support removal path and has not caught up with self-delete; the new site labels the button Contact Support. The changelog sets no awards SLA, so the rule is unchanged: upload the clean ADIF, keep the file, wait out normal lag, do not rebuild the sitting.

Checklist — day after the park

• ADIF retained (Doctor POTA pack + Full backup / paper photos)
• Doctor clean — parks, 2-fers, no Full uploaded to pota.app
• Uploaded via My Log Uploads
• Rechecked upload status before opening a ticket
• Awards/status lag treated as possible (batch window folklore ~03Z–11Z; docs “few hours” is typical, not a contract)
• Wrong file? Delete Log within 24 hours and re-upload; Contact Support only after that window or for accept-but-stuck — not as first reflex

Attribution

Upload paths and fix-errors flow: docs.pota.app — Submitting Logs. Stats timing phrasing (“within a few hours”): docs.pota.app. Batch-window ~03Z–11Z and platform-rewrite framing: a March 2026 community opinion article (“Big Numbers for POTA”), not an official SLA. The site that hosted it was offline when checked on 2026-10-08, so the link was removed. getontheair.app is not an awards authority and does not run pota.app ingest.