Topic: Goldstar Stations

[Jáchym]

King Louie, the monkey, likes your station

[josecmorales]

Mine have 5 stars!  cool

[WheatonRon]

Last summer WU was sending me messages about my temps being too high. This summer I have the gold star. 24 hour fan aspiration added late last year makes a difference.

Don't put too much weight in passing WUs comparables or getting the gold star. As the above poster noted, he got a gold star and his data has only been on WU about a day! That being said, the 24 hour FARS is a good addition to any PWS!

[Coop]

WU Gold Star means absolutely NOTHING, NADA ZIP!! I live in a remote rural area at 5000 ft.  There were only two stations reporting to WU. Several nights ago, I saw a new station located between us pop onto the scene. It wasn't there 2 hours previous. Brand new and sporting the coveted WU Quality rating.  This new guy was reporting wind 180 degrees out of whack, His barometer was not adjusted for sea level and both myself and the other long time station were reporting 62F and the newcomer was reporting 79. All three of us are GOLD STAR stations!! 5 days monitoring of data?  WU - Give me a break!
GOLD STAR is really akin to showing up for practice every day and warming the bench all season. "Good Boy. Thanks for showing up. Here's a medal."

[WheatonRon]

WU Gold Star means absolutely NOTHING, NADA ZIP!! I live in a remote rural area at 5000 ft.  There were only two stations reporting to WU. Several nights ago, I saw a new station located between us pop onto the scene. It wasn't there 2 hours previous. Brand new and sporting the coveted WU Quality rating.  This new guy was reporting wind 180 degrees out of whack, His barometer was not adjusted for sea level and both myself and the other long time station were reporting 62F and the newcomer was reporting 79. All three of us are GOLD STAR stations!! 5 days monitoring of data?  WU - Give me a break!
GOLD STAR is really akin to showing up for practice every day and warming the bench all season. "Good Boy. Thanks for showing up. Here's a medal."

In short, you believe the Goldstar is not the coveted award achieved by only 1% of PWS owners? You are 100% correct and wish the folks at WU would make this award meaningful and at the least, if 5 days of reporting are required (sounds reasonable) then ensure the station actually has 5 days of data! Oh well,WU tries and provides a useful purpose but the Goldstar award is goofy as WU currently uses it!

[Jáchym]

Weird, Unlogical

[PaulMy]

I asked William at WU

Hi,
I have noticed that my IONTARIO226 station is a GoldStar Station, and thank you for that. About Goldstar Stations: This is a high-quality weather station that has passed our quality control process for 5 consecutive days.
Can you explain the criteria of the quality control process and what a station must meet to be a Goldstar.
My IONTARIO1189 (BloomSky) is NOT a Goldstar Station and what differentiates it from the IONTARIO226?
Thanks for your time,
Paul

and the reply is:
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The Bloomsky isn't reporting enough weather metrics to be a gold star station (i.e. no wind direction or speed, no precip)

I am happy!
Paul

[Jáchym]

Aha I see, so a station that would report highly accurately temperature and humidity is in WU´s view poor quality compared to a badly sited cheap station that inaccurately reports not only temperature and humidity, but also wind speed and precipitation

Bravo

[hankster]

But many Bloomsky stations had Goldstar status. Not sure if any of them do now.

EDIT: Nevermind, lookie at this https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KFLNORTH90

[nincehelser]

Interesting note on the Acurite forum.

Some guy is claiming the migration to myAcurite has cost him his "gold medal" rating on wunderground that he's had for "years".   

[WheatonRon]

Interesting note on the Acurite forum.

Some guy is claiming the migration to myAcurite has cost him his "gold medal" rating on wunderground that he's had for "years".   

I will sell him my mine for $1,000US. Sorry, after further review, mine is gone too.

https://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=41.880%2C-88.086&sp=KILWHEAT17

It is back! Price is now $2,000 US!

https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KILWHEAT17

[DoctorKnow]

My Oregon Scientific has a gold star, but not the acurite. The thermometer and hygrometer are too high on the acurite.

[nincehelser]

My Oregon Scientific has a gold star, but not the acurite. The thermometer and hygrometer are too high on the acurite.

I guess you haven't been reading this thread very closely. 

The gold stars are essentially meaningless.

[WheatonRon]

My Oregon Scientific has a gold star, but not the acurite. The thermometer and hygrometer are too high on the acurite.

I guess you haven't been reading this thread very closely. 

The gold stars are essentially meaningless.

I have three offers at $2,000 for my station's gold star, so not completely meaningless! AND, operators are standing by for people wishing to increase the offer!

[Jáchym]

Yes, the gold star surely increases the value of the kit several fold

[DoctorKnow]

My Oregon Scientific has a gold star, but not the acurite. The thermometer and hygrometer are too high on the acurite.

I guess you haven't been reading this thread very closely. 

The gold stars are essentially meaningless.

Yes I have, but I thought some might actually be valid, however, they have now also given my acurite a gold star. It doesn't seem to make any logical sense to me at this point.

I think we all need to start jerking our stations offline.

[Jáchym]

They could also introduce silver star and bronze star, to make it all more interesting  

[WxFox]

The Golden Stars, Oh! Those Golden Stars! They tell me that I have a high quality station. That has a lot of meaning for me. Last summer I got warnings that my temperatures were too high. I added 24 hour FARS and now I have a wonderful Golden Star! It cured my depression. Now I can sleep so much better, not feeling compelled to get up every hour to compare my readings with other local stations.

[WxFox]

The Golden Stars, Oh! Those Golden Stars! They tell me that I have a high quality station. That has a lot of meaning for me. Last summer I got warnings that my temperatures were too high. I added 24 hour FARS and now I have a wonderful Golden Star! It cured my depression. Now I can sleep so much better, not feeling compelled to get up every hour to compare my readings with other local stations.

[WheatonRon]

My Oregon Scientific has a gold star, but not the acurite. The thermometer and hygrometer are too high on the acurite.

I guess you haven't been reading this thread very closely. 

The gold stars are essentially meaningless.

Yes I have, but I thought some might actually be valid, however, they have now also given my acurite a gold star. It doesn't seem to make any logical sense to me at this point.

I think we all need to start jerking our stations offline.

And by taking our stations off line accomplishes what? I think we should live with the idiosyncrasies of WU and move on. They serve a purpose and help the greater good, I think.

[WxFox]

They could also introduce silver star and bronze star, to make it all more interesting  

Just like in the Olympics! We are athletes now, weather athletes!

[Jáchym]

Yeah, I wonder if for example 24h FARS would count as doping

[WheatonRon]

Yeah, I wonder if for example 24h FARS would count as doping

That is why I opted for just the daytime fan so my PWS wouldn't be hit for doping!

[Jáchym]

Based on my station configuration, siting and accuracy I guess I should rather qualify for the paralympics

[nincehelser]

Acurite just released their MacOS version of "PC Connect" for testing.

I've set it up with a new station ID for testing from a 5n1 that already has the coveted "gold star".  (Same weather station hardware, just reporting through a Mac instead of through the SmartHUB)

It will be interesting to see if or when it's awarded.