AIS MARINE 162 MHz DX

What is AIS Marine 162 MHz DX ?

It is the reception of low power transmissions from ships out on the oceans and sea's and feeding the data to a ship plotting site. Our favourite is www.marinetraffic.com which has great maps and data for the avid tropo DX hunter.

Most boats use transponders which send all their position and navagation data, plus cargo and type of vessel information. The max TX power is 12 Watts. Most use omni directional antennas. You can find out a lot more information by looking through the pages at Marine traffic site.

Shore based stations can attempt to receive the ship data and send it to Marine traffic to aid ship navigation and also to study the tropospheric radio conditions across the water and look for openings that may aid our own search for rare 144 MHz and above openings. Strong Sporadic E openings will also propagate AIS signals. AIS transmissions are on 161.975 & 162.025 MHz frequencies.

If you want to seriously look for Marine AIS DX signals you need a yagi antenna, you can make one yourself or have one built for you. The antenna can be very narrow banded as it only uses 2 freq's.

Many Amateur Radio operators also run AIS receiving stations, mostly those near the coast.

A great new feature which has recently arrived on Marine Traffic.com is to be able to plot on the map, all receptions of a particular station over the past 3 hours. This is great when you want an update of whats been happening with the radio conditions. Much other data is also available online.

Note, AIS antenna fixed at 30ft until 8.02.12 when was relocated to 55ft rotateable.
As at 13.02.12 running dual 10 ele yagis via combiner at 55 ft, rotateable.

MARINE AIS DXers Australia on Facebook

TABLE OF AIS OPENINGS TO MY LOCATION: M=Morning; E=Evening (PPBM = Port Phillip Bay Melbourne); EP&M = Evening Prior & Morning.

Above : 03.01.12 received 5 ships via Sporadic E propagation. Max 1861 Km & minimum 904 Km. Antenna fixed SSW.

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