Clarification about the term "GPS Shutdown"

Sounds interesting. Also would help with those containers that go
overboard and drift along - they sometimes are a navigation hazard
all by themself

Juergen Nieveler

 

Sepnt too much time over in SMN, it seems - merchant crews probably
do a lot less painting than their military cousins, who paint
everything that doesn't run away and isn't clearly marked

Indeed, and I don't blame anybody - I just wanted to point out that
tracking is useless unless you can use the tracking information to
actually send somebody out there

ISTR that there at least WERE problems around the Philipines as well
- was that troublespot solved? Of course, the Philipines are more US-
friendly, a couple of US frigates around there wouldn't be much of a
problem - but any pirate there would have lots of islands to hide in
as well...

Juergen Nieveler

 

I know of some clients who do NO painting or chipping at sea - it's just done
when they come into port, and done by contractors. Probably this is the way
it is heading overall.

Oh, for sure, and that is the most difficult part of the equation, especially
around here with multiple countries & jurisdictions. In fact a lot of our
tracking is more for logistics purposes than anti-terrorism, but the 2
requirements overlap, so even our logistics units which have high update
rates (15 minutes) have panic buttons installed.

There were problems, but not really to do with boats (apart from 1 tug boat
hijacked with 3 crew members still not recovered, presumably dead). Most of
the activity there is kidnapping from resorts, etc.

Dave

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The latest GPSWorld has a picture of one on page 53, though this is a
cellular data link rather than Orbcomm. Same idea though.

Dave

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I've even seen civilian painters on a military ship docked in Malta.
OTOH, a busy crew is a happy crew


Juergen Nieveler

 

Everything requires something. GPS is no more dependent on other
factors than anything else.

 

These days the crew spend all their time doing paperwork!

Dave

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GPS requires: Clear view of the sky, working satelites, working
batteries in your receiver

Maps require: A map

Juergen Nieveler

 

For arbitrarily useless values of 'operating'

 

Then there's the so-called 'online' units don't have to take over
because they're always supplying the power to the device(s) and the
'street AC' is used just to keep the batteries charged with the two
sides isolated. The advantage being 0 switching time, so spikes can't
sneak through. I would that with this type of unit, that any transition
to a backup generator source is transparent to the device(s) being
power.

Remember all the scrambling preparing for the Y2K doom? Work had
18-wheeler size backup power units trucked in for that one. Then again,
we're 24/7mision-critical, so it didn't matter what level of hype was
being put out there...

Regards,
Jon

 

Accronyms abound in this thread: )

Mac

 

We had a Orbcomm system we designed on a container for test... tracked it
from Australia to Long Beach, CA and could see where it was every day on a
map. Nice. The container was not in the hold and did get a good sky view.

Joe