Radio Station VA3LKI / VE3LKI is now monitoring and plotting AIS / ADS-B data for casual Marine and Aeronautical tracking.

Data shown on this page may not be in real time and users should be aware and check to determine validity of data, graphs or charts shown on this page.

The station began monitoring during early May of 2011 and as the system grows and activity warrants, it will be operational during normal shipping / boating season on the Great Lakes with a 24/7 schedule.

EQUIPMENT

The AIS station setup utilizes a commercially developed and dedicated vertical antenna designed for operation on the AIS frequencies. The antenna is located at about 15m (45 feet) on the NW side of a fold over tower. Location is to optimize any directivity that may be presented by the tower, in the direction of Georgian Bay. Feed line is Belden 9913 F7 high flex, low loss type, fitted with N type connectors. The AIS receiver is a Comar AIS-2-USB dual channel black box taking all of its necessary power and data direct from the IBM PC that is dedicated to the radio station. Software for the station is the COAA latest release of ShipPlotter. Linking to other stations around the Great Lakes is planned, however current sharing via the internet provides a fair amount of data on screen.

The ADS-B aeronautical station also has its own dedicated commercially developed antenna and duplicated feed line system. It too sits at ~ 15m but on the opposite side of the tower, again to optimize reception. The ADS-B receiver is the Kinetic SBS1er multi-mode receiver. It covers Aeronautical VHF/UHF, plus FM bands, may be used either as USB or Ethernet, and can run via USB power or external 9 - 24 vdc. Data is fed from proprietary software called BaseStation which in turn feeds data to COAA's PlanePlotter. This is how the station is setup here. It too, can share data via TCP/IP or UDP or via HTML.

(Screen grab from ShipPlotter)

(Screen grab from BaseStation virtual radar)

(Screen grab from PlanePlotter)

Our thanks to the folks at PinkFroot for their generous support in assisting us establish
these two additional modes to our station services.

www.pinkfroot.com