Ship Finder App

[swagman]

Excuse me if this information has already been posted, but I cannot find a past thread with the title and thought this worth sharing with those who do have / use an iphone / ipad and are not aware of this program.

Someone pointed me towards the 'Ship Finder' app which appears to take real time AIS information and plot vessels (with regular AIS info). I am assuming the info comes via a server as it talks about a time lapse of 50 odd seconds...........I cannot imagine it picks up AIS transmitted data without some form of reciever.

I have only loaded it this morning so no chance to yet try it at sea, but have used it away from my home wifi connection and it still appears to show and plot ship positions close by my coastal location.........maybe some can enlighten me on how this happens?

I've absolutely no way of knowing it it is accurate, and obviously it is not a tool intended for true navigational use. But as it costs less than US$5 and runs on a phone I always carry, it seemed daft not to buy it.

Cheers
JOHN

[Auspicious]

There are a number of groups that collect AIS information using distributed receivers, mostly run by volunteers out of interest and shared over the Internet in various ways.

Google Maps APRS shows AIS data in addition to ham radio APRS data.

[Jens1]

AIS live tracker too
http://www.fuerstenberg-dhg.de/index.php?id=413&L=1
or directly at
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx