[aprssig] Live Ship Tracking

[WB4GQK at aol.com]

Hi All,

You might be interested in the source of this type of information. Go to:

www.amvers.com

If you click on the STATISTICS box you will see that this information has 
been broadcast starting around 2001. Basically it is a commercial shipping type 
of APRS. Obviously there is a lot more to it than position reports, and just as 
obviously it is instrumental in SAR by all countries with recovery vessels. 

There is one other interesting box and that is Amver/Seas. Here you will see 
where all these commercial ships report WX information at their location. It 
is this WX information that is very valuable and it's this information that is 
made available to the general public.

With my commercial license I was called to work on one of these installations 
several years ago. Needless to say I was very impressed with how similar it 
is to APRS. There is a new upgrade to the positioning system called A.I.S. This 
works on VHF side while the AMVER transmissions are on HF.

Jim wb4gqk