Sea Shepherd

[bodnarp]

Anyone know what frequencies the Sea Shepherd is using. Wale Wars

 

[n5ims]

Most of the communications between their ships uses satelite phones, most likely to prevent the other ships from monitoring.

 

[brandon]

It looks like most of their comms were on VHF marine band. I wonder if they ever utilize encryption? Surely the Japanese fleet could easily monitor their comms. They also used satellite phones on the show.

Here is an interesting site to read
http://www.icrwhale.org/gpandsea.htm

 

[oft]

From watching the show (waiting for announcements for season 5), they use sat phones / internet for personal conversations and tactical maneuvers.They use International Marine VHF frequencies to monitor the Japanese ships

It also appears that they keep a dedicated radio to constantly monitor the emergency channel (monitoring as required by International maritime law) because there was an episode last year where they had to stop the search for the Japanese fleet and go attempt to rescue a mayday distress call that was miles away because they were the nearest ship to the last reported lat / long coordinates.

 

[RadioDitch]

The ship's primary radio is an old-school Sailor RT144C VHF Radiotelephone made in Denmark.

In terms of listening, Sea Shepherd monitors basically everything now-a-days and both the Steve Irwin and Bob Barker are equipped for all marine bands, all modes (including DSC), VHF Air, and even a scanner that keeps an ear on various UHF/VHF non-marine...which have actually turned up results South of 60 a few times with unknown traffic. Got shown on the show once when they got a hit on the old Blue Dot channel.

But yes, there is also a dedicated radio that monitors nothing else but all internationally accepted marine distress frequencies. Sea Shepherd has made it known before that they will abandoned any mission in order to help any ship in need...regardless whether friend or foe.

Portable radios are not conventional.

Oh...and btw. Research my @$*.

 

[loumaag]

Posts Deleted

I have deleted two off topic comments in this thread.

The topic here is what radios are used on Sea Shepherd ships. It is not a place for opinions on Sea Shepherd operations, pro or con. It is also not a place for commenting on the targets of Sea Shepherd operations. If you want to have that discussion, take it to the Tavern, but don't make the comments here.

 

[oft]

W2MJR:

I forgot about Chris Altman and the Helicopter. In fact, I've seen episodes where the radio, radar, and GPS displays on his helicopter are blurred / pixellated out.

Come to think of it, I've thought I've may have seen an Icom R75 in the background of the Steve Irwin, probably to monitor shortwave and monitor WWV to reverify / validate timing on all the equipment. Also, I would think that there would also be some private two way Marine grade radios between the ships and the motorized rafts (Gemini and Delta) because you see other electronic gear on those rafts.

 

[RadioDitch]

W2MJR:

I forgot about Chris Altman and the Helicopter. In fact, I've seen episodes where the radio, radar, and GPS displays on his helicopter are blurred / pixellated out.

Come to think of it, I've thought I've may have seen an Icom R75 in the background of the Steve Irwin, probably to monitor shortwave and monitor WWV to reverify / validate timing on all the equipment. Also, I would think that there would also be some private two way Marine grade radios between the ships and the motorized rafts (Gemini and Delta) because you see other electronic gear on those rafts.

Again. All bands, all modes. Rest assured...they're properly equipped for overkill. ;-)

 

[Hooligan]

Again. All bands, all modes. Rest assured...they're properly equipped for overkill. ;-)

Matt, your responses on this topic make it seem like you have "inside information." Do you mean to imply that, or are you simply speculating & posting info (such as the nomenclature of that one VHF radio -- often clearly displayed on the show) as a fan of the show like the rest of us?

Unfortunately, I don't think they have a great OPSEC/COMSEC awareness, based on what I've seen on the show, and if that's true, it's likely that they don't have much of a SIGINT operation, though if they did, hopefully they'd keep that confidential. I think the reason they use Inmarsat & occasionally Iridium is simply because it's much more user-friendly than HF for voice & data. The Japanese whaling fleet(s) seem to have the support of the Japanese government. The Japanese government is certainly capable of monitoring non-secure or weakly-encrypted Inmarsat/Iridium in regions of the world they have an interest in, so their monitoring Sea Shepherd Conservation Society communications & providing sanitized intelligence to the Japanese whaling industry would be a reasonable course of action, especially when Japan considers the Sea Shepherd actions to be illegal and economically damaging to Japan.

One reason that sometimes some data (often GPS coords and time/date) is blurred out is simply because the producers edit footage around without keeping it in any sort of true continuity. A few times in the past where I've paid-attention to such details & paused high-def DVR images of some of the displays, RADAR images they want the viewer to think were taken moments apart were actually taken days or weeks apart. This is also true to other 'reality' shows like Deadliest Catch, et al.

Around 18 months ago, I sent the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society encrypted email using the public PGP key listed on their web page about OPSEC/COMSEC/SIGINT matters based on what I've seen on the show, & they never bothered to respond. Too bad.

 

[oft]

last night on Whale Wars, Viking Shores, the Brigitte Bardot used an old white ICOM Marine VHF radio on channels 16 and eventually 12 to ask for access to port in the capital city Tórshavn