Hi.
I recently installed my tempest weather station (tempest station ID 102049) and I think it’s been working well (I think). I have also added it to the weather underground system (station ID KMAHANCO3). I have been trying to understand why my station is not achieving the elusive “gold badge” status as in indirect way of QCing the weather station data vs other stations in the area. I’ve never seen a gold badge for my station. Something I noticed is that when wind is zero, there is no value reported to weather underground, which translates into “qcstatus”:0 instead of 1 (by looking at the raw values from the API), which probably causes the “problem”. Is that the case?
Do you have experience with tempest weather stations and “weather underground gold badge status” and how to best resolve any reporting issues?
Is the weather station “gold badge” a good indirect way of QCing my data, or shouldn’t I trust it?
Much appreciate your help.
I once had an old WF Air with a wonky barometer module that was reporting pressures more like Mars than Earth…and WU still gave it a gold star! As I write this, one of my old test stations with only an Air attached (temp/humidity/barometer) has a WU gold star.
My $0.02 is to not lose any sleep over it. Oh, and I’ll gladly share one of my WU gold stars…
Thank you.
I found this old thread:Gold Star monitoring service
It describes a service (https://www.wugoldstar.org/) that basically runs the “QC” over time. This is no longer working. Is anyone aware of a similar service? Would be great to better understand how this works. 
Real weather geeks gave up on WU years ago. I was a user before they even had a web site, and one of their first paying users. Being bought out by The Weather Channel/NBC Universal and now IBM, there’s probably nobody left from the original WU team that even knows how this stuff works any more.
If you want to prove it to yourself, try and find the PWS API upload specs anywhere on the WU site. They apparently can’t/won’t even tell anyone how to send their PWS data to them any more.
Remember the saying from wxforum.net: It’s not you…it’s WU. Oh, and I should throw in an RIP for nincehelser, who posted the linked thread above and probably also hosted the web site before his passing…
I have to say I can only agree. I have 3 different weather stations + x Tempest systems and the stars come and go at will. I have 3 in the exact same spot, same height, and all in 1 square meter and … well guess depending mood or wind direction they get or loose the medal.
And worse there are few nearby stations and one with a pressure sensors way out (like 16mb difference with mine and others) and it still shows a medal …
So yeah, I long gave up with them. It’s a pity but that’s what it is. Use their service and be sure your data is correct but don’t expect the medal to be there … it might or not … 
@vreihen @eric thank you both for the additional background about the WU service overall and the community history.
I’ve sent a note to WU asking for more info about their API and “badge” system, never heard back…
I hooked up my new Tempest today, connected to WU and I was instantly presented with the gold badge! 
[https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KNJBERNA61[KNJBERNA61]
Me too (a few days ago). No idea why, but that’s WU for you.