Greetings!

As you may know, I am working on the nav-electronics aboard VALIS. Previously we had an AIS receive-only unit, but I have now installed a full Class-B transponder, which means that other vessels with AIS receivers can see us too. Yesterday I finished wiring the unit and decided to leave it running.

You can now see VALIS, tied up in her Sausalito slip, on at least one website: http://www.hd-sf.com/livemap.html . The guy running this site is collecting the networked feeds from several AIS receivers located on the hills surrounding San Francisco. I am also sending him a feed from my receiver (on the ridge north of Bodega Bay). In turn, he gives his aggregated signal to other websites, such as http://www.boatingsf.com/ais_map.php (but this one isn’t displaying Class-B AIS targets).

VALIS is not required to transmit her position, and there is a little switch we can throw that puts us in “stealth” mode during a race, but I figure that the intimidation factor of broadcasting our position is a bonus – they will know where we are and not be able to do a thing about it! (or laugh until they pass out from lack of Oxygen, at which point we can sneak around them.)

Hoo-Boy!
-Paul