Author Topic: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?  (Read 936 times)

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Offline DistFunc

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How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« on: February 21, 2021, 10:07:16 AM »
Hi, on Wunderground, there's a PWS very close to me. I would like to talk to the owner (if they're willing) to ask them what they have (their PWS's info only says the equipment is "other") and maybe see if I myself might want to get a PWS.

I can click on their PWS in Wunderground and bring up its current and historical info, etc. But I don't see any way to contact the owner.

I submitted a comment to Wunderground staff on their website, asking if they could forward a message to the owner. It had details on who I am and how to contact. It's been five days and I've gotten no response at all from Wunderground or the owner, so I assume Wunderground deep-sixed it for whatever reason. (Many sites simply don't have much human support these days.)

I understand that some PWS owners want to stay anonymous. But I sure wish the Wunderground site at least let interested people send messages to them, which they could choose to ignore if they wanted. (Or even turn off their contact form.)

Anyway ... does anyone know how I might contact a particular PWS owner? Short of driving through the neighborhood looking for it, or flying a drone around? lol (I don't have a drone.)


Offline galfert

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Re: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2021, 10:14:03 AM »
Why not knock on the door?  Is the location not accurate? Maybe where it seems that it is, that neighbor may know that it is the house next door. What is the WU ID? Sometimes station owners upload data to more online services. If they are on CWOP then their email is available.

On the other hand if you want to know about what weather station to get, I think you are better off asking here on this forum than to talk to a neighbor that might not really know anything.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2021, 10:19:35 AM by galfert »
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Offline PaulMy

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Re: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2021, 11:04:42 AM »

Quote
Hi, on Wunderground, there's a PWS very close to me. I would like to talk to the owner (if they're willing) to ask them what they have (their PWS's info only says the equipment is "other") and maybe see if I myself might want to get a PWS.


That is the way I selected my station years ago.  At that time WU had a feature to communicate with other WU station owners and I used that to welcome and communicate with any new station in the area.  But at that time only a handful around the city and area.  It was good to see a physical station, and then do research (which is how I found this forum). 


Station to station owner communication would be a nice feature for those that don't visit a forum.  About 10 years ago I contacted a local WU station owner here in the City and found that he was preparing his Davis Vue to go to Baffin Island, Nunavut in Canada's North, where he would be working at the St Mary River Mine.  He also set up a webcam that was pointed to the Vue.  I visited that WU site daily.  In the winter some spectacular view of the sun not quite making it across the horizon and watching the images of planes landing on their local runway, and freezing temperature which sometimes would be capped at -40°.  That WU site stopped a few years later and not sure what happened to the station as WU does no longer have that feature to communicate with others.


Enjoy,
Paul[
« Last Edit: February 21, 2021, 11:06:27 AM by PaulMy »

Offline DistFunc

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Re: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2021, 11:12:10 AM »
Hi, I appreciate the ideas. But the PWS owner made their coordinates be an intersection of two streets, suggesting that they don't want to be publicly known, per se. No one can blame them in these days of identity theft, etc.

As for knocking on doors: I live in a suburb of a big city. Folks around here (and probably elsewhere) are kind of suspicious of anyone asking oddball questions out of the blue, especially ones where they might have to finger another neighbor as the answer to the question.

In short, it sure would be nicer to just be able to email the actual owner and let them decide if they want to reply instead of beating around the bush, hoping to get lucky. Still, I might have to resort to that.

I had not heard of CWOP ... this is what you mean, right?: http://www.wxqa.com/stations.html But this site is very problematic:
  • Their "current national weather map" graphic is a broken link icon
  • But even if it weren't, it says it's provided by Wunderground (leading me back to Wunderground... see OP)
  • Trying to change the state in http://www.wxqa.com/states/CO.html, as instructed, brings up a rather meaningless list (how can you find it if you don't know what it's called, nor can you sort on the lat long).
  • Randomly clicking on stations here doesn't bring up much more than their weather info. Where do you see email addresses? I don't see anything under "metadata" for the ones I clicked on.
  • Using the link at "5. Drill-Down World Map Display" to http://www.kanonbra.com/maps/cwop/all_stations_in_map.html finally brings up an actual map ... but the particular PWS near me on WU doesn't show on that map
  • Even if it did, clicking on other PWSs that do exist show that this map gives almost no info except perhaps PWS ID Number. So I guess it would lead back to Wunderground, again as per OP. (Correct me if wrong.)

On another note: I too think that this forum would be best for asking about particular PWS models, etc. But I'm not sold on the personal worth (to me) relative to all the hassle. It would be nice to have an actual physical "demonstration" and talk to an owner at length, than asking here. A forum like this tends to be for Believers already. I'd like to see the actual nuts and bolts of how much time it takes, how well it works, what are the minefields... a rambling conversation with a real unit right in front of us.

I take it you don't directly know a way to contact a Wunderground PWS owner. Okay, now I know. @PaulMy seconds the notion (thanks guy!). I'm kind of surprised they don't have that option... it seems like it would be very useful for folks who are into it. How can you share info and war stories with others near you, if there isn't any way to contact them or even know who they are? Short of a bunch of work-arounds that take longer and might be a wild goose chase. Oh well.

Hey look - I realize you're trying to help. I really appreciate it. I guess I wish the answer wasn't, "no, their isn't a way to contact folks through the WU site". I might try some of these other things though. Or more likely, just give up.

Offline galfert

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Re: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2021, 12:20:50 PM »
Navigating the CWOP stations and the resources behind it is complex. I didn't intend for you to be the one to go rummage through all that. I simply mentioned CWOP as an example and as one of many possible discovery mechanisms....but with the help of those that know how to put together the information and resources. There are yet other resources and some that you would not have access to. My intention was not to send you on wild goose chase but rather to simply inform you that there are other resources. If you give us more information then we can do that discovery for you.

Therefore perhaps you can start of by giving us the WU ID that you are inquiring about and how far are you from it? Then I'll see what we can do with that. It is also possible that if we see that data we can also give you an opinion if we feel that the station is well maintained. Also some stations give off clues as to what hardware it is based on the way they send data or in how the data looks.

Another thing to consider is that since you are not particularly interested in this WU station for any reason other than its proximity to you, that perhaps you would be equally interested in another station that was also close to you but perhaps not on WU. Because there are several other weather networks to consider looking into to find neighbor stations.  So give us your location, at least mention your nearest cross roads and we can look into the various networks for you as there are numerous weather networks to consider.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2021, 12:49:45 PM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
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Offline DistFunc

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Re: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2021, 03:13:13 PM »
Thanks Galfert, you are really going the extra mile here to help out!

I would not have otherwise stated it (to avoid somebody talking about their station without them even knowing), but since we've exhausted other options: It is PWS "Bridlewood", KGADULUT37 https://www.wunderground.com/weather/us/ga/duluth/KGADULUT37. I live about a third a mile south of it.

I first noticed it the other day, which was the first time I've visited Wunderground in many many months. I notice that today it doesn't show on the general WU map itself; I could only find it because I wrote down its station number before. It seems to have started 6/9/19, and you can see that sometimes its data is spotty... I guess that can happen for any reason (power down, internet down, some cable falling out), and only the best sites have near-perfect data logging.

I guess the next-nearest station is "Lynn's Garden" KGADULUT53 https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KGADULUT53?cm_ven=localwx_pwsdash. It's almost a mile southwest of us. (Distance measurements are from Google Earth.)

Thanks if you can help!

Offline Notsorusty

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Re: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2021, 03:43:48 PM »
If you wander or bike about the neighborhood you might be able to see the station in the back yard or on the roof top (mine is on top of the garage and you can see it from the street). Other web reporting sites do have better contact info for station owners.
Station Name: Silver Creek II
Latitude / Longitude: 41.925° N, -87.872° W
Elevation: 633
City: Franklin Park
State: IL
Hardware: Ambient Weather WS-2902D

Offline galfert

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Re: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2021, 04:45:36 PM »
Neither of those two stations are providing good data. The first one doesn't even mention the software being used which is very strange. That right there says to me that it is not something standard. It isn't so strange to see "Other" for hardware, it is the fact that Software doesn't even show up. Then there is the data, I'm seeing spikes in temperature and humidity and even occasions where the dew point is higher than the temperature  :shock: Then there is terrible wind data with wind direction all over the place in a very bad way, even when there is no wind speed being reported, and there doesn't seem to be wind reported although neighbor stations show considerable more wind. ..yeah...no thank you. I don't think that there would be anything to gain from talking to that station owner.

The second station you mention is a Rainwise MKIII and it is in need of a new hygrometer sensor and it too reports dew points higher than temperature. But this station suffers from a lot of sporadic downtime. The Rainwise MKIII is a good station but not among the most popular for the hobbyists on this forum. It wouldn't be my recommendation for a new station owner.

There is a member of this forum that lives in Sugar Hill (not too far from you) and they have a Davis Vantage Pro 2 (VP2) and this is a very good and highly recommended station to own. They have been a member since 2015 but they haven't logged back in since May 2020. I could email them on your behalf if you are interested. Or you can try and send them a PM and maybe they will respond if they have email notification turned on. I can PM you who that is if you want which is public info. But if they don't respond then I could act as a middle-man. Just let me know what you want to do with this.

As for the closest CWOP station owner to maybe contact that would be EW7607 in Berkley Lake and they are another Davis owner. Their contact information is available via this page:
http://wxqa.com/sss/search1.cgi?keyword=EW7607

But you can't just click on the email link. You'll have to manually edit the resulting email and change some strange characters into just the @ sign. It should be obvious what the email address is. If you have trouble with this just PM me and I'll reformat the correct email address for you.

Here is another Davis station, this one in Laurenceville uploading to AWEKAS network and their contact information is on this page (often AWEKAS contact info is private...but not in this case for this station):
https://www.awekas.at/en/instrument.php?id=14484

Hopefully this gets you going better down the path you wanted to go, which is to find a good neighbor to talk to. With that out of the way and depending on the results that you get I still think you'll notice an overwhelming trend when you find good stations. I didn't sort out to just find Davis stations. That is just one of the best and most popular options to look into. But another good choice is to consider an Ecowitt or Ambient branded station if your budget is more modest. I would say these two (Davis and Ecowitt/Ambient) are the most popular options to consider with differing pros and cons that we could point out if you feel like learning more. I still feel that you will learn more from this forum and its members than from any neighbor. I understand that getting your eyes on a station can lead to some meaningful knowledge gain. And if you want the chit chat of just talking shop without needing to type messages on the forum, then drop me a PM and we could do a phone call. I'm pretty open and unbiased among the available options. But you shouldn't talk to just one person. So I still encourage connecting to other station owners.




« Last Edit: February 21, 2021, 06:32:47 PM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
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Offline DistFunc

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Re: How to contact a Wunderground PWS owner?
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2021, 08:45:25 AM »
Thanks Galfert, after your post I looked deeper into the CWOD site and I see that although the interface is dated, there's tons of depth there. I saw how I could find far more info on the Berkeley Lake PWS owner near me. And you're demonstrating what a good PWS station looks like relative to the data it provides.

Also in PM, someone showed me that in fact it was possible to drill down the WU map to find the address of the PWS closest to me. This is also really helpful.

Taken together, this has given me a lot to think about. In theory I'd love to have a PWS... I've never trusted my many little cheap smart-house IoT devices for their temperatures and humidity.

Still, I'm the kind of person who doesn't have too few hobbies and interests; I have too many. Many unfinished projects and I do things like tell folks I'll help, but the actual help is hit or miss (because of all the other things I'm into). So I'll have to heavily weigh if I want to get a PWS. Plus wait for more free time to become available.

Still, your messages have given me much better insight into what running a PWS - a solid PWS - would look like. And what it can provide. It's very generous of you to offer to chat... I will likely take you up on it, if I decide to go for it.

It's great to have forum with members like you, Paul, the guy who PMed me, and others. Thanks!