Thanks for this thread, and your enthusiasm!
AIS is a great system, and it certainly can be interesting watching the enhanced propagation. I use it professionally - my company is in partnership with another company that makes man overboard devices using AIS.
A 1w tx and a GPS rx in a small floating beacon that you clip to your lifejacket.
Ships use their ID number on AIS - known as a Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI).
Here is some more info - off my company website:
Maritime Mobile Service Identities (MMSI)
All DSC equipment is programmed with a unique nine digit identification number, known as a Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI).
The MMSI is sent automatically with each and every DSC transmission made.
Maritime Identification Digits (MID)
The first three digits of the MMSI are known as the Maritime Identification Digits (MID). The MID represents the country of registration of the vessel, or the country in which the DSC shore station is located. MIDs are allocated on an international basis by the ITU, in much the same way as a callsign prefix.
The MID list may be found
here .
Formation of MMSI's
MMSIs allocated to merchant vessels are normally allocated with three trailing zero's.
Those allocated to recreational craft have two or one trailing zero, Coast Station MMSI's are formed with two leading zero's, those allocated to SAR aircraft use 111 as the first three digits, hand held radios have 8 as a leading digit and Man Overboard beacons have their own code structure, starting with 972.
For example:
Typical Australian merchant vessel MMSI- 503001000
where:
503 is the Australian MID;
and
01000 is the individual ship number
Typical Australian recreational vessel MMSI - 503000100
where:
503 is the Australian MID;
and
000100 is the individual ship number
Coast Station MMSI - 005030001
where:
503 is the Australian MID; and
0001 is the individual Coast Station number
SAR aircraft MMSI - 111503123
where:
503 is the Australian MID; and
123 is the individual aircraft number
Hand held radio with DSC MMSI - 850312345
where:
503 is the Australian MID; and
12345 is the individual radio number
Typical DSC man overboard beacon - 972450001
where:
972 is the DSC MoB code;
45 is the manufacturer code
and
0001 is the individual beacon number
MMSI databases
The ITU operate an international web-based data base of MMSI's, known as the Maritime Mobile Access and Retrieval System (MARS).
Here:
http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/index.asp?cate ... rs&lang=en
73
Glenn VK4DU
You beauty!!
