play called Vincent in Brixton 3 period when Vincent van Gogh lived in Brixton Near charing x station road leading down to embankment archway 7.00pm == - tube to london - Henry Stec -=- i started to right something back to you actually the IMO mandate was for ships to carry AIS onboard from July 1 2002, for newbuild But its not from this year, when passenger ships are required to carry AIS tanker ships are supposed to carry them Everyone will require one by end of the year 2004 we found it so useful We found it so useful - we had our own tracking system in place for several years now we had it partially on for our own vessels since 98-99 then we used it for transitting ships since early 2000 we've been tracking our ships and our transitting ships and our own equipment since our the we find it tremendously useful when you depend on portable boxes to track ships they require quite a bit of mainteance - its a little bit burdensome to carry them on ships to idea was to go to something more reliable we've had very good experience with our own tracking equiopment compared to these units there's alwayssomething being broken the AIS permanently mounted on ships would give us this high reliability The ships report heading - The former tracking system had only a report of course over ground the AIS reports actual ships heading which is very important at slow speeds it also provides other information, it allso provides it earlier with the AIS, because its onboard the ship we can see it far awy it also reduces the burden on the pilot to install the equipment every time we see it as a useful thing every time we thought we would encourage our customers to have it installed - not wait until December but have it earlier we indicated, some people said, we're not going to be ready in time - we're allowing ships to go through, if they don't have an AIS installed we can rent them a unit, compatible with $150 the real aim is for these ships to bring the AIS i'm looking at the display in my office i can see 5 ships with AIS in the anchorage in the Pacific side customers are starting to install them its a little bit early to tell how its early to go a lot of ships are renting our units the majority still don't have it installed i would see an incrase in the number that do have it what we're finding though- we installed a network of coastal stations along the canal we ahve very good overage along the canal itself we integrated it with our old tracking system everybody sees everybody else, no matter what they're using we have 2 brand new Litton radars a month ago they were put in - they are integrated into the AIS we have the former tracking system which ties into this other tool all of them play together very well the main problems which we're seeing now we're preparing an advisory to let ships know some of the defects we're seeing what we're finding is a lot of these systems have not been programmed properly they have incorrect ships direction, they're missing the ship's name we've seen a few where the gyro is not connected to the AIS, or its not connected properyl so the system is not reporting heading. The main problem is that they don't seem to be reeceiving our GPS differential corrections we have two ways, where we broadcast them with marine beacons, which we've had for 3/4 years we've also broadcast them on the AIS radio itself some of the manufacturers equipment seem to recieve these signals and process it quite well from the AIS signal other equipment it sems like it does not properly decode the signal in the canal its important they do have differential accuracy the spaces are tight some of these ships only have 2m clearance on either side of the ship the equipment doens't recognise it if they don't have a differential reciever for the GPS signal we have to install them we're going to be letting people know that this is a problem we've contacted one of the manufacturers they said they are coming out with an update pretty soon they already actually the GPS receiver inside the AIS, its supposed to be able to pick up you can have a separate GPS reciever - but its not required by IMO - but you'll pick up our signals Many ships don't have that receiver its inside the AIS unit - that unit is supposed to be able to pick up the AIS signal and extract the DGPS signal that's a requirement by the IMO for those ships which don't have a DGPS receiver in any case they can extract the GPS signal if it is provided we are providing it, we are sending it both ways, by the VHF link and by the AIS beacons All the receivers, even the minimal receivers are supposed to catch that informaiton and use it i think tis just a matter of haivng them update the software we're going to be putting out the word so that people take special care one way to do it is to install equipment which has been certified, by say BSH BSH is the main entity that does certificiations we contacted BSH and talked to the people there they confirmed that before they certify a piece of equipment it can process that signal a lot of equipment that was installed before certification was obtained AIS equipment has been around for a few years those are the ones which we think this is just a temporary situation that can be corrected its really early to tell because we've had experiene to our own tracking system its a great aid in two ways it faciltiate the pirates job as one tool to navigate by this increases we've had record safety in the last year we've had fewer accidents than ever before, we think this is one of the factors that contributed to this for the shore personnel, it gives everyone a map of where evyerbody it helps we have personnel that have to board the ships, we have to have boats available all of these people are able, without getting on the radio they can see what's going on and make their own plans we have pilots graphically displayed when it rains, or reduces visibility at any time if there's a change in schedule they can see what to expect it makes everybody's job better we can get more efficiencies out of our resources by we explain it on a computer screen, the pilots carry a laptop computer, its displayed on their screens on the shore its on a wide area network we have not put it on the internet because there are some security concerns the pilots monitor the ships that are approaching, they monitor other floating equipment that may be in the area during conditions of reduced visibility it gives them a situational awareness of what's going on in the canal they have a good awareness of where the tugboats are everybody that's involved in the transit the way we have organised it here - it goes from the ship to the base stations, it gets broadcast by server, so they all have the information if the system should fail, automatically the ships that have AIS can communicate with one another directly but we don't see that as being too likely we have essentially one AIS base station that is covering the whole canal we have a few others working that cover the whole canal we have another three we have a second set of base stations we have a total set of 6 base stations avilable, installed, connected up and monitoring so if one should fail, the other one will take over it will have to be something so unsual that can take it out of the service 80 km long we have put one in the centre fairly high we have put receiving ones at the end we can extend the range, catch ships approaching from further away we have in mind to start sending meteoroligcal information, wind information, visibility, we thought we'd make sure this is rock stable we have wi-fi type network along the canal, the pilots have portable radios that we communicate with all the time we feel that it would e a good addition to disply weather information right on the screen either by wi-fi or AIS we have very good weather data we have very good meterological stations that help us manage the water its maybe something that pops up on the screen we have to work with the pilots to see whats best the main goal the americans are working with IMO we're also represented at IMO we're very busy putting into practise the latest mandates from IMO in regard to the ISPS code AIS is not really meant for that we do have a whole other set of security measures that we have the AIS is not primarily designed as a anti-terrorist system. When they arrive here we start picking up the other signals from the base stations that we have all of this is receive, its filtered, sometimes there might be multiple targets - you make sure you get rid of mainly duplicated targets then you rebroadcast a clear signal. we brought the 6 base stations from SAAB we also have a couple of mobile equipment we brought from them we have a bit from MDS mostly to adjust our system. SEND A DRAFT manager of the electronics and telecommunications divisions beside the purchase of the AIS base systems the software to integrate the old system with the new one was done by us in house its been working quite well so far, so we're pretty happy with that the original system was designed by the Deparmte of Transportation of the The electronics was desigend