A new law introduced by Beijing appears to have resulted in ships turning off their automatic AIS beacons (161.975 MHz or 162.025 MHz) when in Chinese waters

Since the start of the month, vessels from around the globe, from tankers to cargo ships, have disappeared from global tracking systems as they have entered some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes close to Chinese ports.

As the ships leave Chinese waters they reappear again.

By some estimates, tracking pings from ships near China have fallen by 90 per cent in just a few weeks.

On 1st November 2021, a new law came into effect in China restricting foreign access to any data – potentially including shipping data – deemed to have a bearing on national or economic security.

10-year-old radio amateur Max W0MXX has been building Amateur Radio APRS transmitter payloads to act as tracking beacons and launching them into the stratosphere

Max is a member of the Medway Balloon Society and has recently launched his third balloon flight WB-3.

In early June, Max launched “WB-2” which only captured about 30 seconds of video footage due to a hidden trash folder full of tests. WB-2 also required the help of a tree climber to retrieve the payload (where all the electronics and software are located).