AIS Shore Station

[Donsan]

I use an iPad app called Shipfinder but have been frustrated in that I have never picked up a vessel south of Green Cove Springs on the St Johns. Assume that is due to the lack of AIS shore/base stations anywhere south of Green Cove. So, I have done a little internet sleuthing and found a Digital Yachts AISnet Base Station and a VHF antenna for $500 and chump change.

Has anyone else on TF set up and operate a shore station? If so, what network are you feeding data into?

Any other comments on operating a shore station? Is it a waste of time for the inland waterways?

 

[O C Diver]

Have not done it. I'm curious what your motivation is?

Ted

 

[High Wire]

A few years ago Marine Traffic offered the radio equipment free if it was a base free dead area but my internet provider (Comcast) would not allow continuous streaming into a site without paying a whole lot more. Things have changed with webcams and such.

 

[Donsan]

Have not done it. I'm curious what your motivation is?

Motivation? Oh, to troll TF members. Kidding.

Our house is on the river and has lots of windows. Unfortunately, my office is on the wrong side of the house. I would like something to alert me when large vessels go by so I could get up and watch them. Suspect no more than 4 AIS vessels go by per day, maybe less. Other than that, just thought it would make a contribution to family and friends tracking boats on the inland waterways.

 

[O C Diver]

Motivation? Oh, to troll TF members. Kidding.

Our house is on the river and has lots of windows. Unfortunately, my office is on the wrong side of the house. I would like something to alert me when large vessels go by so I could get up and watch them. Suspect no more than 4 AIS vessels go by per day, maybe less. Other than that, just thought it would make a contribution to family and friends tracking boats on the inland waterways.

Your desire to contribute is commendable!

If I wanted to watch boats, I might surf the Internet for a used AIS receiver with a built-in monitor such as a Simrad AI50. I use this transceiver on my charter boat. With the guard zone function, you could be alerted to ships within a mile or so of you.

Ted

 

[psneeld]

Good point Ted...

also possible, a VHF radio with DSC could be an alert system.

Probably a self contained one with GPS and a VHF antenna would run you $500, but it could be a backup VHF to take on boat trips instead of some stand alone base station.

You could sneak a hello call to them, but that would be illegal unless you get a VHF base station license...

 

[Donsan]

It looks like MarineTraffic will provide a free Base Station receiver and antenna and cables if you are in an area that doesn't have coverage. IF you qualify, all you have to do is provide an acceptable location, power and an internet connection. Certainly the devil will be in the fine print and they may not care too much about the rural St Johns. Since we have satellite internet, the bandwidth demands may not be practical but if we only see 4 vessels in the area per day, it might not use that much bandwidth.

If anyone is interested in the free MarineTraffic base station, you can find out more here:

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/p/expand-coverage

Might contact them and see what they have to say but spending $500 for my own unit might better than signing my life away to purgatory for a free one.

 

[Cruzer]

For what it's worth, I did just point my friend who is the dockmaster at a South Carolina marina to the free equipment offer from MarineTraffic. It is a high-traffic part of the ICW that is underserved by ground stations so I'm not surprised that MarineTraffic was quick to set them up. But what I do know is that it was a fairly simple and painless process. Separately, I also think it looks good for marinas who participate as it is an easy way to "give back" simply by using infrastructure that is already in place and adding the straight-forward equipment. Also, when we were traveling down the east coast this fall we stayed at two marinas that mentioned they had been tracking us on AIS, a simple but helpful way for marinas that are expecting you to anticipate your arrival well before you hail them.

 

[Donsan]

For what it's worth, I did just point my friend who is the dockmaster at a South Carolina marina to the free equipment offer from MarineTraffic. It is a high-traffic part of the ICW that is underserved by ground stations so I'm not surprised that MarineTraffic was quick to set them up. But what I do know is that it was a fairly simple and painless process. Separately, I also think it looks good for marinas who participate as it is an easy way to "give back" simply by using infrastructure that is already in place and adding the straight-forward equipment. Also, when we were traveling down the east coast this fall we stayed at two marinas that mentioned they had been tracking us on AIS, a simple but helpful way for marinas that are expecting you to anticipate your arrival well before you hail them.

There seems to be a lot of areas that are not served even on the ICW. Some of them are big dead zones so to speak. Even if all the marinas had shore stations, there would still be some dead zones. My understanding is the effective range will be 10-20 miles with an antenna 25 ft above sea level.

At one time, I thought I read an article that said the USCG was planning to build out a network of shore stations but guess that became a victim of budget cuts so now it is up to volunteers.

 

[psneeld]

The USCG Rescue 21 system has been started, not sure of its status but easily found.

I know one tower on the beach in Cape May, NJ is at least 200 feet, and my guess higher where other structures are available.

I know there are ICW dead soots due to normal antenna issues and shadiwing from terrain, but large areas I hadnt heard of. Then again, the system probably does not input to AIS civilian tracking.

 

[Donsan]

Then again, the system probably does not input to AIS civilian tracking.

Maybe that is the big disconnect. Would there security reasons on why the USCG AIS reporting should not be made available for civilian tracking?

 

[psneeld]

its a computer based display system and radio control, maybe just firewalling backdoor hackers.

 

[stubones99]

If you're reasonably handy with computers, you can make an AIS receiver with a RaspberryPi computer and a SDR USB radio. Total cost of less than $100 and it uses your internet connection and can map where the vessel is and it's information being transmitted. You can use any HDMI display for the video output (an unused HDMI on your TV, for an example) and it will pick up AIS within 5-6 miles, depending on obstructions.

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/setting-up-a-raspberry-pi-based-ais-receiver-with-an-rtl-sdr/