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Play Value ... Watch the Ships Go By


La Guerriere
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Absolutely fascinating. I'm watching it now with four ferries (Norman Spirit, Pride of Burgundy, Moliere, Pride of Dover) floating outside Dover in bad weather waiting to get in. Must be some very sick people out there.
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Don't forget that the data is aged somewhat and is not real-time.  It says in little letters somewhere that it is an hour old but I am informed by a UK Coastguard I know that the data is up to 3 hours old for security reasons, so don't rely on it if you are in Calais car park wondering where the ferry is.  Must be an invaluable tool for Somali pirates though
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Not so.  The website FAQ says that "Data received are uploaded in the database in real time and therefore they are immediately available on the map." It goes on to say :"However, several positions shown on map may be not continuously refreshed (e.g. when a ship goes out of range). Vessel positions shown on map may be up to 1 hour old." This will be a function, therefore, of a ship's position and the frequency of its position reporting.  Channel shipping seems to be updated every few minutes; a liner I spotted near Venice was updated every few hours (probably because berthed). The time now is 09:08 and Moliere's last reported position was at 09:06:46 (with a very circuitous track outside Dover!) less than 2 minutes ago.

Why on earth would a coastguard think that having data 3 hours old would aid security?????

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[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]

I just had a quick look at the Indian Ocean.

No ships shown at all so there must be a way of making the ships 'invisible' to the public (and pirates)

[/quote]

No, it's just that there's no one in that region monitoring the AIS and forwarding it to the website, or, all the ships are out range of receivers linked to the website.

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[quote user="mattjazz"]Thats absolutely fascinating. Is there a similar one for commercial aircraft do you think?[/quote]

Have a look at this site, I found it earlier this year when my son flew to Oz. The range is limited by US and European radar so coverage over Russia, etc is zero, but could be useful.

http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightTracker/flightTracker.do

Not sure whats happened to quote!!!
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  • 2 weeks later...

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