Ham raido ways to track your boat

[Bi111ion]

Marine Traffic (etc) are great ways for your friends and family to watch your cruising progress, and if you have an HF radio and PACTOR you usually send position reports when you fetch or send your email. But it uses quite a lot of power and requires a certain motivation to get it working, choosing the right band, waiting for your turn etc.

I was looking for an easier way to send position reports, not all the time but maybe more than once a day while off shore. I notice that my PACTOR works as an APRS beacon automatically but I am not sure there are many relays or where they are, plus it still needs choice of a band that will get to that station.

I am currently working on a kit for a WSPR beacon. It looks like a great idea, cost $29 for a kit, uses less than 200mA, has web linked receivers all over the world.

My ideas and progress so far on my blog http://tuioyster.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/there-must-be-50-ways-to-track-your.html but I would be interest to hear if anyone else has any ingenious ideas I have not thought of.

 

[Bi111ion]

Sorry fumbly fingers here miss typed "radio" and then went to edit it, slow connection, it had already saved the thread. Oh well

 

[GHA]

I've used the winlink system before offshore
http://www.winlink.org/userPositions
and with a sat phone FTP'd a file onto a google map in a website.


I wonder if there's a little script or something you could write to get an email to update into a google map? This was done by hand but there might be a way...
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/v...98,31.533&hl=en&mid=zefYw-yAgwaY.k7N61ruSSCN0

 

[Jabs]

How about one of the Spot trackers?

The latest version can be programmed and will send a position to a number of emails or gsm numbers at given intervals whilst under way.

Also, very useful as a back up to the epirb.

Tony.

 

[Iliade]

Perhaps a mod could merge these two threads please?

Would it be possible (if perhaps not legal) to bounce a powerful AIS signal off the ionosphere? Or to use a frequency that will, to send a position packet to a shore based receiver which can either retransmit on usual AIS frequencies or send a position to, say, Leonardo (an aviation cross country flying server)

We use SPOT, but Leonardo and the Live Tracking servers/websites are free.

 

[[70521]]

Yellowbrick offer this service and talking to one of the sat phone providers at the London Boat Show some of their phones also provide this service.