Marine vessel tracking commissioned February 2023 as a service to community and safety.
On February 19th 2024, SERG members Peter VK5BE and Nick VK5NJS, and with the assistance of Andrew VK5MAS, completed the installation and commissioning at Nene Valley, the marine vessel tracking receiver for the AIS.
Operating at 162MHz, a high gain collinear antenna, formerly used by the Yahl CFS, was returned to service on a roof mounted pole. The receiver, based on a raspberry pi, was supplied by the AIS.
This receiver receives packets of position data from vessels up to 150km out to sea. The ships ID and position data is then uploaded to the cloud where the AIS create a world map showing the position of all sea going vessels.
Visit Marine Traffic | Marine Vessel Finder (marinevesseltraffic.com) to view the map.
Our shore based receiver has an ID of Terrestrial Ais.
Although this is of little value to amateur radio, SERG can be seen as providing an important service to the maritime community, although when vessels can be tracked up to 500km or more out to sea, it suggests that band conditions are favourable for VHF DX.
