Topic: Don't send UV and radiation data to WU and other clouds

[m.toso]

Hello to everybody,
I'm setting up Weewx with Ecowitt sensors (WH32EP + WS68 + WH40) and I want to send data in cloud services such as Weather Underground or Weathercloud. I don't want to send UV and radiation data because they are a calculated approximation from the light sensor. I noticed that the UV approximation is high (bad quality data), even applying offsets to the gateway.
Is it possible to not send UV and radiation data to WU and other clouds, keeping them in the local database?

Thank you

[Gyvate]

Let me say this first (my opinion):  very few personal weather stations use a real pyranometer or a pyrheliometer and are therefore very accurate - and most radiation and UV values sent to WU are only approximations,
meaning: your wish for accurateness (or providing nothing) will imho not be of much help for others reading your station data.

Regarding your question:
you would probably need to create your own upload to WU in weewx - something that you can do. Just needs programming and not using a ready-made functionality.
You will have to look up the WU API definition and provide your upload accordingly - but not via the [[Wunderground]] stanza in the [StdRESTful] section in weewx.conf.

The FOSHK plugin (see https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=39625.0) might also allow you to modify the upload to WU (or other Weather Networks) together with weewx.
Have a look at the description. If in doubt, contact the FOSHK plugin author, WXforum avatar name: olicat

[galfert]

Anyone really interested in data quality is also going to be concerned with the type of station (brand/model) that the data is coming from. Therefore excluding the data is not really that important I feel. I think that even beyond brand/model is sensor siting. A station that wants to be considered highly in terms of data quality should have information regarding siting and also type of radiation shield in use if different from the standard for the model among other things. Therefore data exclusion should be a consideration that is left up to the person using the data. I say just upload what your station has to offer.

[m.toso]

I agree with both of you but I will try not to send completely unreliable UV data, even if others do.
I know that Weather Underground is "anonymous" (there is no info about the PWS), but in Weathercloud you can describe your station with text and photos.
So an enthusiast can "rate" the station data.
Thank you for your help, I will check the FOSHK plugin and other ways to upload data.

[galfert]

WU upload is not anonymous. WU provides a way to identify the station hardware and the software. Granted the choices are a bit limited but the main ones are there to some extent. Also anyone needing quality data is probably not going to WU. If you upload to various online service then it is easy for someone to aggregate station info from the different services. I think actually not sending UV an solar to WU might actually make your data seem odd as it would be expected for certain station types. Having it missing might just make other data questionable.