Why isn't VesselFinder picking up my AIS but others are

darryl_g

darryl_g

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I got my new boat 2 months ago & had an AIS transponder fitted.

It's being picked up by MarineTraffic, ShipAIS and Findship but no sign of it on VesselFinder, despite travelling across the Solent and across to Weymouth last week. I've been moored next to several boats being detected on VesselFinder but it's still not showing mine

MMSI is 232010627& Boat name's Just the Tonic

All I got from VesselFinder themselves was garbage indicating that it was because my boat hadn't been in range of one of their transmitters.

Any ideas?
 
Nothing to do with being in range of one of their 'transmitters'.........
Maybe not in range of a suitable AIS receiver station thou,
My understanding is these ship finder / plane finder apps rely mainly on hobbiest receiver stations relaying their data. Not even sure they get any payment for it so it s best endeavours
 
I saw your C48 in Weymouth when i was down there on my own boat last week , looked lovely, and like brand new
Give us a shout if you venture to Weymouth again and ill get you a pint

Cheers
Tetleys
 
Ship finder which I normally use found your boat with correct name from the MMSI with no difficulty, so I tried my MMSI in VesselFinder and it found and named it correctly (boat in the Solent). But as you say Vesselfinder does not recognise your MMSI or boat name so II can only think they are very slow in updating their database which they use for searching. When your AIS is on and transmitting do you see a vessel in your location when you zoom in on the world map?
 
CharlieAlpha said:
Ship finder which I normally use found your boat with correct name from the MMSI with no difficulty, so I tried my MMSI in VesselFinder and it found and named it correctly (boat in the Solent). But as you say Vesselfinder does not recognise your MMSI or boat name so II can only think they are very slow in updating their database which they use for searching. When your AIS is on and transmitting do you see a vessel in your location when you zoom in on the world map?
Click to expand...

No - not on VesselFinder. I see vessels next to me but I'm not there (though I can see my vessel on Marine Traffic)
 
Pretty common in a marina that vesselfinder doesn't find you. I have noticed that even if it seems to find the boat almost next to me..that boat also comes and goes as it were.
 
I thought i'd add an update to this.

I did further investigation into Vessel finder and its own trackers - as previously mentioned, many are hobbyists. Turns out they did't really have any in the Solent or to the West. They did, however, have one out towards Portsmouth. When I visited Portsmouth at the end of last season, they detected me.

Now, I can be seen on Vesselfinder - even when i'm not being picked up by one of their stations.

It seems therefore that they can receive data from far more stations than theirs but will only recognise boats that have at some stage been picked up by one of their receivers
 
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