AIS receive-only for CE laptop?

[rgano]

We will probably be heading north to the Tennessee River soon to bring a boat south to the Gulf. It will be a 560-mile run through 12 locks. The boat has ZERO electronic outside of the depth sounder and a basic VHF. Charting and plotting will be accomplished with my two Coastal Explorer equipped laptops. An AIS receive-only capability would surely be nice to have to keep track of the on-coming tows. Has anybody got a cheap and easy idea to implement this capability?

 

[AlaskaProf]

We will probably be heading north to the Tennessee River soon to bring a boat south to the Gulf. It will be a 560-mile run through 12 locks. The boat has ZERO electronic outside of the depth sounder and a basic VHF. Charting and plotting will be accomplished with my two Coastal Explorer equipped laptops. An AIS receive-only capability would surely be nice to have to keep track of the on-coming tows. Has anybody got a cheap and easy idea to implement this capability?

Rich, I sold my receiver a couple years ago to a TFer for $100 when I upgraded after one year. In my correspondence to him, I suggested he would probably do the same. Keep an eye open.:lol:


For your situation, it is a very good idea. Should be plug 'n' play, won't even need ship's power. It will need a GPS source. May already be in your laptops. If not, one of the $20 pucks on Amazon works fine. I have one I'd send you free, but I won't be on the boat for another 60 days or so.
Bill

 

[Portage_Bay]

Your post made me curious. Not a recommendation due to no experience with it. But it looks promising

https://www.amazon.com/Quark-elec-W...ocphy=9033387&hvtargid=pla-573370643452&psc=1

We will probably be heading north to the Tennessee River soon to bring a boat south to the Gulf. It will be a 560-mile run through 12 locks. The boat has ZERO electronic outside of the depth sounder and a basic VHF. Charting and plotting will be accomplished with my two Coastal Explorer equipped laptops. An AIS receive-only capability would surely be nice to have to keep track of the on-coming tows. Has anybody got a cheap and easy idea to implement this capability?

 

[SteveK]

I just downloaded a free app Marine Radar to android phone after checking out a few. Have not yet tested on the water. It claims to be real time.
So there must be apps for the laptop.

 

[AlaskaProf]

Rich, I sold my receiver a couple years ago to a TFer for $100 when I upgraded after one year. In my correspondence to him, I suggested he would probably do the same. Keep an eye open.:lol:
l

Rich,
Just went back through my PMs. I sold it to a guy named Avalanche. You might PM him; see if he's ready to upgrade.

 

[Olebird]

https://www.quark-elec.com/product/qk-a021-ais-receiver-dongle/

 

[Olebird]

when you making the run?

 

[AlaskaProf]

https://www.quark-elec.com/product/qk-a021-ais-receiver-dongle/

wow!

 

[rgano]

Rich, I sold my receiver a couple years ago to a TFer for $100 when I upgraded after one year. In my correspondence to him, I suggested he would probably do the same. Keep an eye open.:lol:


For your situation, it is a very good idea. Should be plug 'n' play, won't even need ship's power. It will need a GPS source. May already be in your laptops. If not, one of the $20 pucks on Amazon works fine. I have one I'd send you free, but I won't be on the boat for another 60 days or so.
Bill

Thanks, Bill. Two GPS pucks, two computers here.

 

[rgano]

when you making the run?

May start 30 Dec from Wheeler Park.

I tried the Quark thing about five years back and had zero success with it.

 

[rgano]

wow!

I wish the one I had would have worked worth a darn. Iffy at best even after a replacement.

 

[AlaskaProf]

I wish the one I had would have worked worth a darn. Iffy at best even after a replacement.

A shame, for sure.

 

[Olebird]

The later versions of the dongle seem to work a lot better than the earlier ones. I've had 3 of them - first one was't worth a hoot. Most recent < 2 years works much better. One on the bench to play with and one in the Plane for ADSB (similar to AIS) -works pretty good - traffic and weather.


All in the software!!

 

[rgano]

The later versions of the dongle seem to work a lot better than the earlier ones. I've had 3 of them - first one was't worth a hoot. Most recent < 2 years works much better. One on the bench to play with and one in the Plane for ADSB (similar to AIS) -works pretty good - traffic and weather.


All in the software!!

Good to know. Wonder if I can get one before Christmas.

 

[Olebird]

Probably have to come out of UK. Expedited freight more than the unit at this point.



I just poked around some to see if I could cobble one of what i have into something useful. Are you running opncpn on the laptop? Will take a fast laptop to tune the radio, decode the AIS audio into NMEA0183 - and run a plotter to display every thing.


Not all that difficult - just a lot of moving parts

 

[Cigatoo]

I just downloaded a free app Marine Radar to android phone after checking out a few. Have not yet tested on the water. It claims to be real time.
So there must be apps for the laptop.

It will only be real time if your phone is receiving vhf transmissions. Otherwise it is reliant on the internet for its data.

 

[Hippocampus]

Wife loves using MarineTraffic to keep an eye on friends and acquaintances so frequently have it running simultaneously with the AIS transceiver. Even in environments with plenty of towers for vhf and cellphone there’s a lag on the MarineTraffic. The amount seems to vary but would think it’s probably not a good idea to use it as even a supplement to the usual array of electronic aids to navigation.
Think it’s as important to be seen as well as see. So if there’s anyway possible in your budget a transceiver is a huge step up. Avoiding “state intentions “ calls on the vhf is always a good idea.

 

[rgano]

Probably have to come out of UK. Expedited freight more than the unit at this point.



I just poked around some to see if I could cobble one of what i have into something useful. Are you running opncpn on the laptop? Will take a fast laptop to tune the radio, decode the AIS audio into NMEA0183 - and run a plotter to display every thing.


Not all that difficult - just a lot of moving parts

I run Coastal Explorer. I am looking at a dAISy dual channel rcvr: https://shop.wegmatt.com/products/daisy-2-dual-channel-ais-receiver-with-nmea-0183

I already have both a rubber ducky AIS antenna as well as a taller magnetic base AIS antenna I bought for the defunct Quark dongle.

 

[Ka_sea_ta]

I've got that Quark receiver, ( not the dongle ) it's powered through the USB. CE recognized it as soon as it was plugged in. Having the GPS integrated into the unit just made it that much easier. A caveat is I'm using a NUC not a laptop, it should be the same easy connection. All you need is a vhf and gps ant.

 

[rgano]

I have this antenna and adapter I think came from Quark years ago. The photo shows the end of the antenna's cable in the jaws of the micrometer. It has been identified as an FME connector by one person. The two ends of the Quark pigtail adapter are to the left in the photo. The dongle end of the adapter is funny looking in that it has no threads but does have an indented rig as if to snap into the dongle's receptacle. Anyway, I expect to have no need for the dongle adapter. I think I will get a FME-to BNC adapter and plug it into a dAISy dual channel receiver which I have reports that is is recognized by Coastal Explorer without issues.

 

[koliver]

Boatbeacon on your phone. You can also buy it bundled with a good charting program.
The AIS is real time, unlike Marine Traffic and others.
Only works if you remain in a decent level of cell coverage.

 

[Portage_Bay]

Wife loves using MarineTraffic to keep an eye on friends and acquaintances so frequently have it running simultaneously with the AIS transceiver. Even in environments with plenty of towers for vhf and cellphone there’s a lag on the MarineTraffic. The amount seems to vary but would think it’s probably not a good idea to use it as even a supplement to the usual array of electronic aids to navigation.
Think it’s as important to be seen as well as see. So if there’s anyway possible in your budget a transceiver is a huge step up. Avoiding “state intentions “ calls on the vhf is always a good idea.

I agree the delay and even missed targets on MarineTraffic make it a poor choice for primary AIS data. However I do find it useful. Many plotters / nav software either limit the number of AIS targets displayed or I can limit the number of targets displayed. There is also the fact that the onboard AIS uses a VHF antenna which puts some limits on how far out the system can see. I can look 'beyond' my plotter / software to spot approaching fast AIS targets and get a 'heads up' before they appear on the plotter / nav software.

 

[rgano]

Boatbeacon on your phone. You can also buy it bundled with a good charting program.
The AIS is real time, unlike Marine Traffic and others.
Only works if you remain in a decent level of cell coverage.

Nice idea, but where we are going, there is lots of zip coverage.

The Brit Quark products are probably out of the question now because this has to be installed and working before we depart for the boat on 26 December. Delivery services are already slow because of covid excuses not to mention Xmas.

 

[Hippocampus]

We got rid of the splitter first thing. Antennas and gps pucks are cheap. Ended up with redundancy for both. Simple to swap out so could use any antenna for any function. For line of sight devices having the antenna as high as possible and single function makes a huge difference in performance imho. Having three was reassuring. No concerns if one fails while underway.

 

[rgano]

Soooo, here's what happened. I discovered the dAISy dual channel AIS receiver from Wegmatt.com for around 87 bucks, and Adrian got it here in several days so I had some time to check it out before our 560-mile Tenn-Tom Waterway delivery. I have two compatible antennas which meant there was no additional expense. I have done nothing but plug it into my laptop's USB port to see the AIS icon of a nearby tug, but I have every confidence that it will perform as required in the Tenn-Tom starting 30 December. More to follow afterwards.

Rather than download OPNCPN, which is more familiar to Adrian from Wegmatt who supported me, I of course, insisted that I wanted the receiver to work on my Coastal Explorer software which is a dead simple installation were it not for dumb ol' me.

Let me say right off the bat that Adrian in Seattle was at 11 PM CST still in there swinging trying to help me through difficulties of my own making. He gave me a phone number, but I found it simpler to use email only. I was sending him screen capture after screen capture showing the AIS data coming into Coastal Explorer with no AIS icon. He patiently decoded the data telling me it was the Miss Desty, a tug working a nearby road work support job, just 3 miles away across the water out my back door.

I would tell him how I had looked at the Win10 settings confirming the com port, etc, etc, and he stayed right there without giving up as he had every right to do, being unfamiliar with CE. Finally, after going around Robin Hood's barn about five times I clued myself into the fact that all you have to do to see AIS data on CE is click on the "Chart" box in the lower center of the screen to find a "View AIS Data" box to check. Of course, they could not program it to be in the Settings/AIS menu - sheeesh!

Win 10 requires no driver installation - just plug it in and start using it after telling CE to use 38400 baud rate, something even I was able to handle under the obvious CE Settings/AIS drop down.

Just for the heck of it, I downloaded OPNCPN, plugged in the dAISy, and "bam" as that chef says, there was the Miss Desty. So clearly, OPNCPN is made for dummies like me.

 

[Olebird]

Neat little box & can't beat the price. It's not an SDR either. Read the thread on developement - very clever designer! Should do exactly what you want to do Rich.



Now if we could just get this guy to put an AIS transceiver together with the same philopsy !!!



If you are anywhere near Mi368 - call me on the two way and I'll buy you a coffee at City Harbor. (or TXT 256 570 8513)


Glad you found a solution - have a safe trip!



Larry on Starlite

 

[rgano]

Wish it was happening, but we are starting at 277 and going the other way.

 

[Olebird]

Figures - based on your original mileage you were starting some where down river.

 

[stubones99]

Another option might be Software Define Radio (SDR)
It uses one of the cheap TV receiver USB dongles and can be configured to receive and decode a wide frequency range... I saw one that uses a raspberry pi and a SDR to receive AIS and chart it on google maps.
https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-cheap-ais-ship-tracking/

 

[stubones99]

I saw a kit to use an SDR and a PC to collect AIS and post it on MarineTraffic.com but if you live in an area with poor coverage, they will send you a box to do it.