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Coast Guard to Track Ships Using Buoys

Posted by michael on from the feeling-safer-already dept.

nomrniceguy writes "The Coast Guard plans to use dozens of buoys off the U.S. coast to extend the reach of a security system that monitors large vessels heading in and out of ports. The buoys are intended to extend the network's reach -- the Guard now receives the automated data only when a vessel is within about 25 miles of a port. The floating transmitters will relay the information from hundreds of miles off shore, from the middle of Lake Superior and off coastlines from Alaska to Maine."

2 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Why new buoys? by Roland+Piquepaille · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was under the impression that the US had spent billions of dollars seeding the north atlantic ocean with passive buoys and magnetic anomaly detectors (MAD) as a net to detect and triangulate soviet subs. This is cold war stuff that could perfectly be reused to counter new threats from terrorism, since it's been there and working for decades and, presumably, still in operation. So why deploy new ones?

    1. Re:Why new buoys? by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 4, Informative
      The currently installed SOSUS system does indeed track large magnetic and acoustic objects out in the Atlantic an elsewhere. However....this is sometihng different.

      A passing ship will report to the buoy 'This is me'. That ID can be looked up in a database, of where it came from, who owns it, and what it (supposedly) carries. These new buoys extend that ID farther out.

      As far as reusing the SOSUS buoys, a) what makes you think they are not still useful in their original role? and b) they are generally on the ocean floor to track subs. Not really useful for surface ships.