More comments from Russ (KB0TVJ) and Dick (KB7ZVA):
Everyone (CWOP) should connect to aprswest.net or ahubca.net at first irregardless of where they are located. These two servers have dedicated weather ports (23). The other core servers (first, second, and third) should only be used if these two are down. aprswest and ahubca servers have solid connections to the core servers with little to no data seems to be lost.
Level 1 servers (core) have enough to do with a zillion connects happening. We must keep in mind that FIFO (first in / first out) is the way the internet works. It would be nice to think that everyone was first… but it doesn’t work that way, ESPECIALLY ON A BUSY CORE. Port 23’s main advantage is that anyone connecting there ‘sees’ all data.
There is another port relating to port 23, port 10154. 10154 is a bidirectional dump port. It stores wx data over the past 30 mins. When you connect to it you get a very impressive non-stop feed of wx stations. After it finishes dumping what it has learned, it continues to function just like port 23. Only the most recent data is used in the dump.