Never thought to try this: I can hear Vessel Traffic Service on my marine radio at home. They track all active vessels and hazards in the SF Bay, and have helped me out directly as a kayaker many times. They even call out whale sightings.
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Wow so helpful! Looking up that model now :)
Do you know if it can also receive the channel used to alert movable bridges of incoming ship traffic? Was hoping to use a similar receiver to get early warning and record bridges in motion, for ex. the Jingletown bridge to Alameda
Those bridges are on a different channel; which one it is, I forget, but you can see it the bridges' signs from the water.
VTS is tracking anything with AIS (cargo/tanker ships and barges, ferries, high-capacity tourist boats, etc.) but they also report debris, marine events like swims, etc.
Makes sense, yeah I read that it was by request on the (insert name of appropriate authority that escapes me) website and was hoping that with advance notice I could run over with a go-bag in time to capture it, may not be enough lag between request and action tho
Hmmm the good thing about recording in Chicago is that, while bridges can lift on demand, the vast majority of them are regularly scheduled on a public calendar.
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Do you know if it can also receive the channel used to alert movable bridges of incoming ship traffic? Was hoping to use a similar receiver to get early warning and record bridges in motion, for ex. the Jingletown bridge to Alameda
VTS is tracking anything with AIS (cargo/tanker ships and barges, ferries, high-capacity tourist boats, etc.) but they also report debris, marine events like swims, etc.
As far as another means of tracking that kind of thing, maybe this site could be useful? https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-90.0/centery:34.0/zoom:5