Many years ago, I helped design and install control systems in Vessels serving the oil industry in South Louisiana. I moved on to other control systems in different industries, eventually focusing on Security Facility Control Systems.
My interest in AIS brought me back to the MarineTraffic.com site, and my enjoyment of maritime activities was rekindled. As a ham radio operator, AB5G, and emergency communications operator, it was a natural fit. Plenty of antennas, and one mile and a half from the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

When contacting the staff at MarineTraffic.com in Greece, they immediately made me feel welcome.

A new AIS receiver was prepared, commissioned and shipped to me. I was quickly up and running with Station 1671.

My job has kept me busy but the enjoyment of seeing the impact my little station is making gives me a feeling of pride. The continuous features and improvement that the Marine Traffic team have made over the last several years is astounding. They have taken AIS, navigation, port congestion, tracking and even Search And Rescue Transponder to another level. They are making global shipping safer and more efficient using the data to perform incredible analysis for a multitude of purposes. Every year, they come out with new features and new, game changing projects for the maritime industry.

While making progress in giant leaps, they have still maintained a tech staff that treats all stations as vital, regardless of size.

A few months ago, my stations range began to slowly decrease, and I reached out to tech support. I’ve never seen such knowledgeable and genuinely concerned tech support in a global company. When we determined the problem was in the receiver, tech support, sent me a new and improved receiver model right away. You couldn’t get better service from a company in your own town much less on the other side of the globe.

Once again, my stations’ daily number of ships and range have increased. It is now normal to get 300 or more messages per minute. With the UI web interface on the receiver, I can watch the graphs change every minute along with a multitude of information and real-time performance of the station.