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

[Heikki Hannikainen]

   Hi,

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, Earl Needham wrote:

> Mark Fellhauer wrote:
>> 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!
>>
>    I did a quick check, and it appears to have data (on the web site)
> from all over the world!

   Well, there is some AIS data from most continents, yes, but only a 
fairly small subset of the coastal areas are covered. There are a number 
of VHF receivers receiving AIS data using ShipPlotter or gnuais, and 
sending the data to aprs.fi or MarineTraffic, much like igates are doing 
for APRS. aprs.fi and MarineTraffic are then exchanging this data.

>    Now -- I would like to track the Ruby Princess via APRS -- our
> oldest son is "working" on that ship, playing trombone!  But I can't
> figure out how to get www.aprs.fi to show me the Ruby Princess, it just
> seems to default to the Helsinki area, and I haven't figured out a data
> feed to UI-View yet, either.

   A wildcard lookup for all targets starting with "ruby" does not find 
Ruby Princess:

   http://aprs.fi/?call=ruby*

   A Google search for "ruby princess mmsi" returns a MarineTraffic page, 
which says "MMSI: 310567000", but the page is not longer available at 
MarineTraffic. It seems like the ship has not been anywhere near our AIS 
receivers for quite a while. An aprs.fi lookup for 310567000 doesn't 
return anythong either.

   - Hessu