[aprssig] Cruise Ships, APRS.FI, and AIS

[Mark Fellhauer]

While getting ready for my next cruise on the Carnival Spirit (Feb. 16th to 
Acapulco) I noticed that APRS.FI has added AIS data to San Diego 
Harbor.  This is fantastic!

It appears they are getting their data from marinetraffic.com.
http://marinetraffic.com/ais/

I've also been using this KML file to track cruise ships worldwide from 
seascanner.com
www.seascanner.com/kml/kfben.kml

At first I thought they were just interpolating a cruise ship's position 
based on it's itinerary, but using San Diego's Pier webcam you can see they 
are getting their updates in real time.
http://tinyurl.com/sjwr6

Too bad Carnival bans all Ham Radio transmitting equipment from their ships 
(and I am instituting my own laptop and cellphone ban), but I'm tempted to 
bring a small scanner for signal sniffing.

I'm waiting for someone to come up with a handheld AIS receiver.  The last 
cruise I was on we could see other ships off in the distance, especially at 
night, and I was curious as to see who they were.


73,

Mark
KC7BXS