-->September 6th, 2025<--
Thank you to GolfCharlie and Claude Code for fixing the code to work with the newly changed FAA API! They have saved a lot of time. A new image has been created and will be uploaded today and available later tonight. If you don't want or need the image, you can visit https://github.com/markyharris/livesectional and incorporate the changes into your board now.
--->September 5th, 2025<--
There has been another change to the FAA API which has again broke the map. We are currently working on this. Check back for fix. If you have the fix please post it. - Mark
I've read the forum, and I know that trivially, the answer to this is "the ones that have METARs reported through aviationweather.gov API." Handily, aviationweather.gov's APIs seem to be used by SkyVector, so if the airport has a colored ball on SkyVector, you should drill a hole for an LED.
Some web searching and an email to the NWS further tells me that if the weather station is funded by the FAA, it includes the network connection from the airport to the system that ultimately publishes it to the API, but if the airport pays for the weather station out of its own funding, it's up to the airport to publish the data to NWS/FAA itself.
Since building my map, I've noticed a few things:
- Small towered airports (RHV and PAO near San Jose) will often only have a METAR when the tower is open, so the LED goes dark at night.
- A couple of airports that have automated weather reporting (E16 and PVF) did not have METARs published through aviationweather.gov when I was drilling holes. But they do now. (Fortunately, in both cases, there's a spare LED that's in the right place for me to drill a hole and put through the front of the board.)
- Weirdly, one airport that almost always had a METAR published (C83) hasn't had it's LED lit in something like a week.
Is there a way to get historical METARs and see what airports have reported in the past? I know on aviationweather.gov you can get a 5 day METAR history, but I wish I could tell which airports commonly report data.
That's a great question. I've not done any research on the reasons behind when and why an airport wouldn't publish, so the information you provided is new to me. Maybe someone who is on this forum will have more knowledge of the inner workings and will reply with more info. - Mark
I'm in the same area as the OP, and I have had trouble with O88 and O22. AWC reports a METAR for O22 but it's lights out on the map. I hate having a dead LED on the map. I've only had it up and running for a day but I may have to duplicate a nearby airport just so it doesn't look so odd.
Petaluma O69 is in the similar situation, but at least it's showing white for not reporting. Hopefully it changes tomorrow.
