What happened to AIS coverage around Dutch Harbor? I’m not seeing any vessels now on marinetraffic, but I usually see many vessels in that area.
I’m picking up the tanker AFFINITY off Wainwright, but none of the other Shell exploration vessels. Its been a coupl days since I’ve picked up the NANIQ near AFFINITY. I have not even seen the USCG cutter HEALEY (last seen transiting the Bering Strait northbound with NANIQ) for over a week.
Is there a free AIS website with better Alaska coverage?
The only one that has better coverage is the marine exchange of Alaska and you have to pay for it.
Considering that you can not use Google Maps to look at military bases anymore, don’t u think Uncle Sam may not want u to see EVERYTHING?
No AIS on KULLUK
Kulluk heads for Arctic drilling grounds
Shell’s drilling rig Kulluk cast off from its moorings at OSI and proceeded to sea Monday just before noon. The drilling rig, pulled by two large Crowley tugs and assisted by two local Dunlap Towing tugs, is headed for the Arctic where it will drill a test well or maybe two as part of Shell’s plan to develop a potentially rich oil field in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The rig travels at 4 knots so the trip should take two weeks.
“We absolutely expect to drill this year,” Peter E. Slaiby, Shell’s vice president in charge of Alaskan operations, told the New York Times. “Our confidence continues to grow, and we are feeling good.”
Shell’s second drilling rig, the Noble Discoverer, remains at anchor in Wide Bay off Dutch Harbor.
18 August 2012
AIS usually shows many vessels in the Dutch Harbor / Unimak Pass area. Container ships, tugs, fishing vessels,etc. It was working fine a few days ago. I do not believe that the “government” has suddenly decided to restrict access to this AIS info.
Coverage on marinetraffic.com is hit or miss. The receivers are run by individuals who may or may not have them turned on and plugged in. The weather also plats a factor.
OK. Whatever you say. Just like GPS when they had selective availability turned on and the FBI spying on Americans in the 1960’s and secret CIA prisons so we could “interrogate” people.
No, the “government” would NEVER make an arbitrary decision in an area involving sensitive subjects like the ecology, national security and national defense. I am glad they are there making decisions for me. I want them to because we are not smart enough to do these things for ourselves.
I trust a bunch of MORONS that can’t balance a check book or read a freaking history book. Good for me.
I trust a bunch of MORONS that can’t balance a check book or read a freaking history book. Good for me.
WHAT??? We can’t be out of money… We have more checks left!
The AIS comment is true. I recall just prior to the start of Desert Storm the pan pan broadcasts saying that the GPS system was being degraded due to repositioning of satellites. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the commencement was imminent. Makes you wonder what is being stirred up now, right before an election!
Yes, you’re correct I meant GPS. But the analogy stands, Big Brother can turn anything on, off or degrade it at will.
I was in Dutch Harbor during the first Gulf War when GPS suddenly went from having about a quarter of the accuracy of LORAN C to being very accurate because the government switched off selective availability on GPS. The government did this because they had to buy off the shelf GPS receivers that were intended for civilian use in order to get enough of them to issue to troops in the Persian Gulf. This made GPS so useful that it was widely adopted for civilian use and the Pentagon was not allowed to turn selective availability back on.
This is not to say that the government could not turn selective availability back on if the need arose or even turn GPS off altogether — hence the need for mariners to know how to navigate without GPS.
AIS did not exist during the first Gulf War, or if it did, it was not in wide spread use and I had never even heard of it.
The government has no reason to turn off AIS around Dutch Harbor at this time. The government does not care who knows what about wherever whatever vessels are around Dutch Harbor. The safety advantage of having AIS working around Dutch and Unimak Pass far outweighs any desire to keep that info a secret. The recent lost of AIS around Dutch must be the result of some technical problem.
[QUOTE=tugsailor;79688] The recent lost of AIS around Dutch must be the result of some technical problem.[/QUOTE]
MarineTraffic.com relies upon individuals to send in signals to their servers via the internet. Has absolutely NOTHING to do with the US Govt.
It is my opinion that the Dutch Harbor feed is due to one ship relaying the feed over the internet., so yes a technical glitch.
Ship not in town equals no contacts.
Ship in town equals coverage.
I do not know which vessel submits, so I can’t tell you when they are there or not.
However, you are saying now Wainwright shows vessels? It must be one of the ships in THAT fleet sending the data.
There are times when I can not find a particular vessel on marinetraffic, but It does show up on shipspotting:
[QUOTE=Tom_Tugboat;79690]MarineTraffic.com relies upon individuals to send in signals to their servers via the internet. Has absolutely NOTHING to do with the US Govt.
[/QUOTE]
Whatever you say… Who do you think ultimately controls the internet?
Remember after 9/11 when the big internet/cell phone/phone companies said they weren’t assisting the government with phone taps and then a few years later there were all the lawsuits that proved they were and the government slid through a rider on some bill that basically exonerated them for violating our rights? Companies do what big brother tells them to do, if they are smart.
DO NOT TRUST ANY OF THEM. Hell don’t trust me, I worked for them for 22 years.
I was looking at beach communiies around your neck of the woods. Lo and behold the air base near you is all a blur! Whodathunkit?
I am a little skeptical that uncle Sam could actually effectively patrol the internet. They can’t even get telemarketers to not be able to use Canadian calling to circumvent the ‘do not call’ list. And that is using long established lines of communication.
Of course they could just blanket block the university of the agean access to our servers. If China can successfully block Google, then blocking AIS sounds like a cynch.
AIS is transmitted on VHF. Base stations have hiccups with some regularity, but vessel’s signals would not be affected.
Duh repeat.
It is the internet dissemination of this info that is being discussed.
The issue is that many internet based providers (marinetraffic, shipfinder) give out position, course, speed, and even vessel type for free to anyone.
This flys in the face of the level of security we are being inflicted upon when we fly. It’s no wonder the Somalia pirates know who and what to hit!
mego. .
[QUOTE=tugsailor;79688]I was in Dutch Harbor during the first Gulf War when GPS suddenly went from having about a quarter of the accuracy of LORAN C to being very accurate because the government switched off selective availability on GPS. The government did this because they had to buy off the shelf GPS receivers that were intended for civilian use in order to get enough of them to issue to troops in the Persian Gulf. This made GPS so useful that it was widely adopted for civilian use and the Pentagon was not allowed to turn selective availability back on.
This is not to say that the government could not turn selective availability back on if the need arose or even turn GPS off altogether — hence the need for mariners to know how to navigate without GPS.
AIS did not exist during the first Gulf War, or if it did, it was not in wide spread use and I had never even heard of it.
The government has no reason to turn off AIS around Dutch Harbor at this time. The government does not care who knows what about wherever whatever vessels are around Dutch Harbor. The safety advantage of having AIS working around Dutch and Unimak Pass far outweighs any desire to keep that info a secret. The recent lost of AIS around Dutch must be the result of some technical problem.[/QUOTE]
If selected availibility is turned back on then why not just use glonass?
Glonass hasn’t figured out all its problems yet but there are commercial packages that can use glonass to augment gps and every dp modu subscribes commercial satellites that improve gps accuracy and can correct the signal even if selected availability is turned back on.
But the point is moot because Glonass is no longer the only option. The European Galileo system and China’s Compass ( BeiDou-2) systems are launching satellites as we speak.
You are also assuming that selective availability is the only signal degradation trick up Washington’s sleeve. This was the case 20 years ago but today there are new classified systems that allow the Air Force to do much more including shutting down specific regions of coverage. Of course Uncle Sam won’t tell you any of this but…
I was off the coast of India when the 2nd gulf war broke out and we lost the gps signal entirely. The 2/m called me and a couple of ET’s up to the bridge thinking it was a problem with the DP computer… I called a nearby workboat and a passing tanker then took a handheld gps out to the bridge wing. None had a signal.
I the called the watchstander at Schriever Air Force Base in colorado… he was surprised to get my call and gave me the run-around. A few days later they sent us notification that a “timing glitch” caused the error. I call BS!
The government has no use for SA anymore simply because they have better systems now.
That said, they aren’t 100% on the ball. When I first heard (from s forum reader!) that the Maersk Alabama was captured by pirates I looked the ship up in the ITU database and called the bridge. I can’t give details but a few hours later I got calls from washington asking how I got the ship’s number… I thought I was about to be yelled at but quickly realized they called to ask my help in finding the ship! I told them to call INMARSAT?
What is even worse is the fact I received an ais sart to test last year and I called the uscg rcc in my area before activating the init. Despite the fact I activated it less than a mile from a coast guard station the RCC didn’t catch the signal and couldn’t see any of the ais targets that marinetraffic had listed in the harbor!
So… As far as tracking ships via ais, satellite ais or inmarsat, I don’t have much confidence in the US government but the Chinese may be a different story!
P.S. here’s a good article we posted from a expert in government domain awareness (washington’s term for tracking ships):