AIS Service

[Henrik Soderberg]

Hi all,

As you probably know already, we're going to launch an AIS service.

If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see in featurs and behaviour, it's time to let us know that now.

You can post in this thread or use the "contact" button in the top menu if you don't have a username here, or if you don't want to post in public.

Regards,
Henrik

[Robert Smith]

Hi Henrik,

Personally I like the outlay and possibilities of www.marinetraffic.com
You might consider using this site as an example.

Brgds,
Rob.

 

[snocky]

Fantastic idea, but only fear i have as an older retired lover of this site, who lives on a very low pension is sooner or later I & probably an awful lot of seniors like me will be unable to access the site because of fees that will be charged. This site as is now is a vital part of my  daily activity & i,m so greatful for persons who started this & continue to keep it a great gift like it presently is today. God bless & keep up good work.

[Henrik Soderberg]

Hi,

We're trying not to look at other sites, but do things like we want it to be and with features as per request by users. Map services on the web either fail on usability, and those who succeed look quite similar. Mainly depending on limitations in the maps and browsers making only a few solutions possible.

Don't worry about not being able to use the site. Should we add a paid membership it would not block anything currently available.

Regards,
Henrik

[Phil English]

Henrik,

Great news. In my view, sites the Marine Traffic and Vessel Tracker fail on usability - far too many mouse clicks to get what you want and a clunky front end database. By far the best AIS website out there is AISLive.com. But then it should be because it is also expensive and run by one of the World's foremost shipping information companies. The thing with AISLive is that you can go to any port and see within one or two clicks exactly what ships are there. One more click and you have a handy listing of those ships without having to look at them one by one. I have to say that I no longer use AISLive - reasons too complicated to go into here - but I am looking forward to an alternative service that can in some way match it. So far I have yet to see one :-)

PS - remember it's the IMO numbers that are important, less so MMSI numbers and call signs.

Brgds
Phil

[henrycourt]

hi Phil, For my sins I do subscribe to aislive.com, as you say it's expensive but when I'm doing a bit of ship-spotting from the cliffs at Folkestone or anywhere else in the country it's good to be able to identify what I'm looking at. If this new service through this site doesn't take off perhaps they could look at a tie up with aislive.com, something similar to the arrangement that used to exist between the WSS and AISLIVE which was excellent for the year that I had it and I must say very reasonably priced. I never did get to the bottom of why it all stopped. Rgds jw

[Steve Geronazzo]

I use VTS Lite from Siitech.com. It is free and only reliable software for my region... Quebec, Canada. What I would like is to see all the ships in an area which is fast and user-friendly. For shipspotting purposes I propose the new AIS service have a tool that gives estimates of when a ship will be in a specific area. Marinetraffic offers this service and it helps me plan my shipspotting outings.   

Another thing I would like is to be able to view a picture of the ship by using a single click and it would also be interesting to have the 'best' picture... not necessarily the latest submitted for that ship.

Steve Geronazzo

[Sinisa Aljinovic]

You could add one "avatar" like antenna blinking next to ship's info if the ship is in/out an area covered by AIS reception or last ETA info received, maybe.

[Clubfoot]

have a look at www.DAMV.de/mais... I think this is a really good AIS page.. displays the southern baltic sea.

[Christopher Gray]

Given the affiliation with Airnav ShipTrax, would it make sense to adopt the same look and functionality of ShipTrax?  A combination of map, ship list, and ship detail window.

[Kelvin Davies]

You get around a bit then Chris (Tarbat). Out of curiosity, I clicked on the Ship Trax link on the front page and find you are now a "Customer in New York" with the following attributed to you:
"Finally a decent ship tracking application for Windows.All the power you never had on web based AIS solutions".
From beta tester in Scotland to Customer in New York!
Or was this perhaps done without your knowledge?
Kelvin

[Andre Brandao]

Hi Kelvin

Tks for your point. There is a mistake with the page as Chris (Tarbat) is in Scotland, not in NY. Anyway he really mentioned what is written on the site's quotation! :-)
We will correct this ASAP.
Tks again.

Andre