Topic: ID Assignment?

[SOCALWX]

Why does the Citizen Weather ID have different descriptors like CW and DW?  Can someone have both a Citizen Weather ID and a NWS ID?

 *  NWS ID (aka AFOS ID): This is the five character id like Cxxxx, Dxxxx, APxxx and ARxxx.
    * Citizen Weather ID: This is six characters of the form CWxxxx, DWxxxx.

[SlowModem]

Why does the Citizen Weather ID have different descriptors like CW and DW?  Can someone have both a Citizen Weather ID and a NWS ID?

 *  NWS ID (aka AFOS ID): This is the five character id like Cxxxx, Dxxxx, APxxx and ARxxx.
    * Citizen Weather ID: This is six characters of the form CWxxxx, DWxxxx.

6. Why do I have two IDs for CWOP? Actually, you have three IDs because there are three different databases involved. To reduce confusion, we've tried to make the IDs the same or similar where possible. The first database is the findu.com mySQL database of received weather packets. Ham radio stations use the callsign of the station, and CW stations use CWxxxx in the findu.com database. The second database is the MADIS set of netCDF files where the ID is called the NWS ID and is a maximum of 5 characters. Ham radio weather stations are identified by APxxx or ARxxx or ASxxx (two upper case letters followed by 3 numbers) and CW weather stations are identified by Cxxxx (upper case C followed by 4 numbers). The MADIS netCDF files are used to send the data on to users and to store the quality checking information. The third database is the CWOP database. Ham stations have a Provider ID of apxxx or arxxx or asxxx (two lower case letters followed by 3 numbers) and CW weather stations have a Provider ID of CWxxxx (2 upper case letters followed by 4 numbers). The key things to remember are that the ham callsign or CWxxxx goes in with your data packet and is what you look for on findu.com while the quality checking results are identified by the five character NWS ID of APxxx or ARxxx or ASxxx or Cxxxx. The members list provides the cross reference.

(They started using DW when they ran out of CW)

[SOCALWX]

Thank you Greg for that excellent explanation.  That really helps clarify things for me.   I can use this info as my rosetta stone.