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Master Location Identifier Database

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 9:46 pm
by Tim Vasquez
A note to people looking for identifier tables: Weather Graphics maintains the Master Location Identifiers Database (MLID) here:

http://www.weathergraphics.com/identifiers

There is a continuously updated Standard Version that is provided to the community free of charge, and a Professional Version at additional cost which includes historical rows and start/stop dates. The Professional Version charge recovers time and effort incurred putting the listings together, and covers our costs for historical documents, AIP access, and data access charges.

I also need to caution people about using unofficial identifier sources found on the Internet. There are a couple of crowdsourced identifier websites which have gradually turned into massive sources of misleading and unofficial identifiers. This data has gotten into a lot of places like Wikipedia, Wikimapia, and some university station tables. The only official source of official ICAO identifiers is the ICAO (Doc 7910) and official Aeronautical Information Publications. Where there is an office that maintains national identifiers (such as the FAA) or which announces changes on NOAAPORT, those are considered a valid supplement to the AIP. When using new sources we use various tests to check for known misleading data in circulation to make sure it doesn't corrupt the MLID, and test against these sources.

Our Station Identifier forum moderator (tstm) is welcome to tag onto this thread to add additional useful reference information and sources of data. Tstm's work is independent from us and we support his work in disseminating useful information to all hobbyists and professionals.

Tim Vasquez
Weather Graphics