raymarine ais500 track

[dewent]

I recently had a Raymarine AIS 500 installed on my yacht. All seems to work fine on the receiving side. The dealer/installer advised me that the boat could be tracked on www.marinetraffic.com However sometimes the track is fine - other times non existent. On a recent 300 mile trip there was no sign of my ais track for almost have of the journey up the welsh coast. Should I worry that I am not transmitting correctly?

 

[Playtime]

I recently had a Raymarine AIS 500 installed on my yacht. All seems to work fine on the receiving side. The dealer/installer advised me that the boat could be tracked on www.marinetraffic.com However sometimes the track is fine - other times non existent. On a recent 300 mile trip there was no sign of my ais track for almost have of the journey up the welsh coast. Should I worry that I am not transmitting correctly?

It depends where the receiving stations are sited. If your boat was more than, say, 15 miles from a receiver then it is unlikely that you would be 'heard'.

Were other yachts 'seen' in your vicinity when you weren't?

 

[PeterR]

A class B AIS transponder only puts out a 2W signal unlike class A ones which put out 12W. I have frequently noticed yachts' AIS signals becoming intermittent at only a few miles range whilst I pick up ships reliably at about 20-25 miles. I know a lot of other people, including coastguards, who have noticed the same thing.

Get a friend to see if they can pick up your signal on their yacht within about 5 miles which appears to be about as much as you can rely on. You may well be picked up much further away than that but it does not appear that you can rely on it with a class B system.

Do not expect many ships to pick you up at any range as the vast majority still only have AIS minimum keyboard devices which are not linked to their radar or plotter and consequently are not monitored. The only time the bridge officers will look at it is to find the MMSI of a ship they have already detected on radar who they wish to speak to.

 

[pugwash60]

Do not expect many ships to pick you up at any range as the vast majority still only have AIS minimum keyboard devices which are not linked to their radar or plotter and consequently are not monitored. The only time the bridge officers will look at it is to find the MMSI of a ship they have already detected on radar who they wish to speak to.[/QUOTE]

ABSOLUTELY
So many people believe that the watchkeepers are monitoring the AIS for locating contacts, they aren't. They look at the radar and out of the window. (mostly). Some may have the AIS interfaced to something useful like a plotter, in fact we do and it's nice but it's not normal.

 

[pugwash60]

Odd that's the first time I've tried a quote, why didn't it come up all nice and blue like everybody elses?

 

[DaveS]

Odd that's the first time I've tried a quote, why didn't it come up all nice and blue like everybody elses?

Don't know. Works OK for me!

 

[bbg]

Odd that's the first time I've tried a quote, why didn't it come up all nice and blue like everybody elses?

Because you deleted the part at the beginning that starts

 

[Bilgediver]

On a recent 300 mile trip there was no sign of my ais track for almost have of the journey up the welsh coast. Should I worry that I am not transmitting correctly?

Most of the receiving stations upon which AIS coastal tracking depends are provided by enthusiastic amateurs who may or may not have a good location for receiving VHF from coastal ships not in their immediate vicinity. Moreover if you are sailing along a coast which is devoid of enthusiastic amateurs you are in a black hole. Some may not be set to receive type B.

It is not everyone has a location where they can hear ships transmissions all the way from Aberdeen to Eyemouth and up the Forth to Grangemouth.

As more and more folk sign up and feed the data then the coverage will improve.