FW4284

[Gray Matter]

Please add FW4284 for QC monitoring.

Thanks!

[Gray Matter]

For now, you may disregard this request.  Apparently even if you notify NOAA that your CWOP station will be offline because you're moving, they will delete you from their database if you are offline for too long and it turns out they don't know how to put a deleted ID back in the system.

[googl...@tedlum.com]

I don't believe that is correct, unless something has changed. It is true, you will be moved to the inactive list if you don't send data for a while, but there shouldn't be an issue with moving it back to active, the procedure is really the same as having it added in the first place.

At one point we did debate whether someone should be sending data under the same ID if they had moved, since there would be a discontinuity over time if a single ID held the history from multiple locations, especially if those locations were far apart. But, given that fact the records contain coordinates, and given the fact the list of potential IDs is finite and limited, it was though best to keep the same ID for the station over time.

[Gray Matter]

That's what I had hoped because the way I wrote the software for my sensors when I first built it I won't be able to change the station ID (mainly because I've lost my original source code) until I rewrite my sensor software which I'm working on but haven't had any time to spend on it. The email I received after I notified them that my station was back online specifically said they had deleted it from the database.  

I should clarify, I just assumed that they couldn't figure out how to do it because it has been over a month since I asked if they could put it back in with no response and no change.

[Gray Matter]

I just received confirmation from Leigh that they do not have the ability to put my old station ID back in and that I would have to get a new one, so my station will be offline for a while.

On Friday, 12 November 2021 at 06:02:27 UTC-8 googl...@tedlum.com wrote:

[Dooby Skoo]

Yeah, I moved my my station, CW0825 cross country from Oregon to East Tennessee and kept my same ID. The changeover was smooth from the CWOP people. I had some trouble at first sending the data string because I didn’t have a leading zero in the longitude in the new coordinates in the posting string to findu.

Took me a while to finally see what was staring me in the face all along.

 

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[Gray Matter]

I'm glad to hear my experience is not the norm.

[googl...@tedlum.com]

I fear this may have become the new norm. You could always send packets into APRSWXNET, and so long as the packets were reasonably valid, findu would display and archive the records. The data was, and maybe still is, gated to MADIS using a single text control file (APRSWXNETStation.txt). That file contained the same basic metadata as the CWOP user lists plus a few extra columns. It was read once a week, on Tuesdays if I remember correctly, and controlled what station IDs would be included in the files that were shipped over to MAIDS. The content of the file was manually maintained by humans and you had to request that you be added when you were ready to send data or if you'd been removed after a long hiatus.

I don't know what process the people behind the scenes used to manage the growing list of station IDs, but I do know there have been some changes in the more than 20 years since inception. I'm not aware of a database ever being a part of the mix, but if there is one now then the rules may have changed a little as a result.

It seems kind of odd though, it's not like the IDs can be reused. There is around 15,000 active ID's out of 50,000, and while a lot of 9,999 in the G block may not have been assigned yet, a lot of the 40,000 in the C, D, E and F blocks have been abandoned or were never used. It dosen't make a lot of sense to burn through the available IDs faster by forcing someone to get a new ID rather than going back to an older ID that is permanently reserved whether someone is using it or not. So yea, I'm scratching my head on this one.