AIS Usage by Warships and USCG

The U.S. Navy says their vessels are now to broadcast AIS in "high traffic" areas.

Anyone had a Navy ship appear on their screen yet? I'd say Virginia and Sn Diego are pretty high-traffic.

I haven't as yet seen a change in policy for the USCG.

This summer I encountered and spoke to a USN warship offshore. They were "running silent," in their phrase.

Similar for a USCG 110-footer that chased me down a couple of years ago.

It is oddly disconcerting to have the AIS screen empty and an unknown ship steaming aggressively toward you on the open ocean.

Essentially, all commercial vessels over 65 feet are now required to have at least Class B AIS now, and to use it.

Have seen the HMCS Yellowknife up but no US vessels yet. This is on the Straights.

The one navy boat that ever comes up this way had its AIS going last time I saw it, a month or so ago. Coast guard bouy tender was in the marina last night, had AIS going at the dock. Hardly a "high traffic" area, but it's nice to know when something large is just around the bend in the river. (These boats are both "small" compared to commercial tows - about 100 feet.)

The local CG cutter here shows up on AIS when at the dock, but haven't yet seen a blip when they're out on the Sound.

Have never (yet) seen a blip from USN, either at dock or under way.

On 8/7/16 on the return leg of my trip to Kaua'i, the USCGC Stratton set off my AIS alarm at about 1am local. It was directly behind me and triggered the CPA alarm at about 10nm. It eventually altered course and passed to starboard, but was surprised they were broadcasting. I figured at the time it was a courtesy.

An inbound aircraft carrier and the USCG submarine escorts just showed up on AIS this morning so it looks like they have started turning the AIS's on. This is on the Straights of Juan de Fuca.

A US Government "Cargo Ship" #86 is cruising back and forth this morning between Port Angeles and the border at Victoria. It has an extremely large pop gun on the foredeck and obviously carries missiles (The cargo?). The point is, it is showing up on the AIS even though is mislabeled. It is currently right on the US Canadian border pointed toward Port Angeles doing 4kn.

Lately, I’ve noticed several vessels on marinetraffic.com that were mis-categorized. It seems possible that they might have programmed their transponders incorrectly, but it also could be a problem with the web site software. Especially since they’ve been mixing ground station data with satellite data for about a year now. I haven’t cared enough about it to go down to the boat and try to pick up the signal directly.

BTW: Some ham operator has been running a volunteer ground station in my area, from time to time this year, so Acrturus occasionally shows up on marinetraffic.com. But it’s not always on. I had thought of setting one up with an old computer and a cheap software-defined radio. It might be a fun exercise in antenna-building and (attempted) SDR - hacking.

Sorry about that. iPad hiccup

Marinetraffic.com: Off San Diego, "US GOV" ships appear. Also, their MMSI numbers.

Hmmm. Destroyer. Well, that's a USGOV ship....

Interesting, the cargo ship up here is the same class as the Howard you posted. It is the USS Shoup.