Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission

Expert Working Group for Mutual Exchange and Deliveries AIS EWG 32-2021
of AIS & Data
Online, 26-27 May 2021

Document title Long-range AIS transmission control

Code 7-1
Category CMNT
Agenda Item 7 - Any other business
Submission date 26.04.2021
Submitted by Finland
Reference

Background

During the last months of 2020 and first months of 2021, few cases were reported in Helsinki area where the
vessels' Class A AIS devices were found to interfere with channel 16. The AIS devices were transmitting
message 27 (Long-range automatic identification system broadcast message) on channels 75 and 76.

The channels 75 and 76, assigned for Long Range AIS transmissions, are located on both sides of the distress
and calling channel 16. The long-range transmissions cause very low VDL load (17ms transmissions every 3
minutes), but in an area with many vessels and dense traffic there is a risk that observable inference is caused
to the adjacent voice channels. Therefore, it is recommended that in coastal areas, covered by AIS base
stations, the long-range AIS transmissions are supressed by the base stations.

The long-range AIS transmission control was originally done via the message 4 (Base station report) only.
However, the ITU recommendation M.1371-5, published on February 2014, introduced an enhanced
suppression mechanism where base station is required to send also message 23 (Group assignment
command) if the intention is to suppress the long-range AIS transmissions.

Action requested
The Meeting are invited to:
- provide information on the status of the long-range AIS transmission control along their coasts;
- discuss the possible need to agree on the harmonized long-range AIS transmission suppression policy
in the Baltic Sea area.

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Long-range AIS transmission control

The AIS message 27 (Long-range automatic identification system broadcast message) was introduced to allow
better reception of AIS messages from satellites /1/. The message 27 is a shortened version of AIS message
1 (Position report) compensating for the longer propagation time delay between vessel and satellite.
Message 27 is transmitted by Class A AIS devices alternately on two dedicated VHF channels (75 and 76).

Base station control

As default, the long-range transmissions are active in Class A AIS devices. However, in the coastal areas,
covered by AIS base stations, it is not necessary to transmit long-range AIS messages because vessel reports
can be received directly via terrestrial AIS base stations.

AIS base stations are able to control the transmission of message 27 by sending Message 4 (Base station
report) in conjunction with message 23 (Group assignment command). If the intention is to suppress message
27 transmissions in the base station coverage area, the following control settings must be applied to
messages 4 and 23:

• Message 4; parameter "Transmission control for long-range broadcast message" is set to zero
• Message 23; parameter "Station type" is set to 10 and the base station coverage area (rectangular)
is defined by parameters "Longitude 1", "Latitude 1", "Longitude 2" and "Latitude 2".

More information on the required control settings are given in the recommendation ITU-R M1371-5 Annex
4, section 3.3.3 /2/.

Consideration for message 27 transmission suppression

Vessels transmit message 27 once every 3 minutes. One transmission lasts only 17 ms and impact on and
possible interference with adjacent channels is thus quite low. However, if there are many vessels
transmitting message 27 in the same area, interference may be observed. Because long-range AIS channels
75 and 76 are located on both sides of the distress and calling channel 16, interference should be avoided.

In an area where vessels' AIS reports can be received via terrestrial AIS base stations the suppression of
message 27 transmissions should be considered.

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References

1. Report ITU-R M.2169 (12/2009) Improved satellite detection of AIS. Available at

https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-r/opb/rep/R-REP-M.2169-2009-PDF-E.pdf

2. Recommendation ITU-R M.1371-5 (02/2014) Technical characteristics for an automatic

identification system using time division multiple access in the VHF maritime mobile frequency
band. Available at https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/m/R-REC-M.1371-5-201402-I!!PDF-
E.pdf

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