Welcome to the GAFIRS AIS Pages.

What is AIS?

AIS is Automatic Identification System

Who Carries AIS?

All commercial Vessels are Mandated to Carry what is known as Class A AIS Transponders, Leisure Craft and Others can also use Transponders, many use Class B

Why do we use AIS?

GAFIRS used to track its craft using a Vehicle Location System (AVLS) prior to the development of AIS, with the advent of AIS we decided that as many vessels,

Port Authorities and the Coastguard could recieve the AIS Transmission that this was a enhancement that would advertise our presence to the users of the solent.

It also allows us to monitor our boats progress and enhances safety for our crews

How Do We Recieve our AIS?

We use two locations to recieve our AIS Data - One of the recievers is remote to our HQ and Feeds the data back via a Wireless Link, The other is located at our HQ.

Once the Data is Recieved at our HQ, It runs into a software package (gutsmux) written by one of our members this combines the signals and outputs them to a commercial navigation software package with search and recue capabilities, the data is also fed to a seperate web server running 'Shipplotter' software, this enables us to insert into our website both screen shots of AIS which we recieve and also to upload data into a google maps application.

The system has been developed and built in house by our members, using off the shelf components (Software and Hardware) and also some customised components to allow the system to operate, we have also utilised various scripts from the shipplotter forums to provide additional facilities on the google page (This is currently being enhanced further)

So where are our AIS Pages?

Screen Shot Image(The Solent and Approaches)

Google Maps AIS Display