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The source material linked in the article (SIDtoday newsletter) is what states it was used for AIS traffic. I am curious as to what else you believe it is used

• logfromblammo 9y ago
  I'd guess they were monitoring every signal from radio bands that have a line-of-sight or one-bounce range limitations, as they could get the rest of the spectrum from their ground-based antennas. They're experts in signals intelligence and have no practical budget limitations. They're recording everything, automatically processing to find the interesting bits, and assigning real life humans to look at those interesting bits. I'm guessing that in the NYC area, at the very least Russia, China, and Canada are sucking up the same EM signals, or trying to. We mere mortals tend to assume that such a tool would be used for one thing in particular, because don't have cults of patriotism or bottomless bank accounts.
• 1001101 9y ago
  We've had these blimps over our landlocked midwestern city. The largest ships in our area are 24' Sea Rays on a lake, nowhere near the gross tonnage that mandates use of AIS. We may have to accept that the true nature of these blimps is shrouded under layers of state secrecy, and all we have left is speculation based on observation.