Last night I ran the “install-aiscatcher” script (at my Github site), and got my AIS-catcher softwsre upgraded to latest version. In latest version, in the “SHIPS” table, a new column “Validated” has been added at far right.
@SweetPea11 shows that in the post above.
I should probably update as I’ve been getting a couple of long shots each day.
Interestingly, I have a few hours of repeat signals that look plausible - pity I wasn’t awake to confirm if it was a valid MMSI,
AIS-Cacher is developing rapidly 
.
I just updated and see that ships flags have been added.
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Actually, as it turns out, it is probably the cable that picks up these signals, not the FA 1090MHz antenna, because it is enough to connect a cable to the SDR to receive the signals…
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Today, I drove a few miles to the intersection of the rivers Rhine and Ruhr, where there is a big industrial port there, as well.
Quite a lot to “see” there, these are the signals picked up from my home made cloth hanger antenna after a few minutes.
Regarding the vinnant AIS, it has now suddenly started to pick up signals as well, but whatever I try, it still performs decisively worse than my home made version. I still think it is broken, or it is just bad for this purpose…
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I found that antenna for AIS signal is rather simple.
Even I plug dongle accidentally to my TV antenna, it’s still can pick up some nearby ships.
The best one made is just a plain copper wire (no coil or balun) d=1.5mm * L = lambda * 5/8 * 0.95 = 1074 mm.
The ideal materal is a stainless steel rod d= 2~3 mm like VHF23 here
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Has anyone else had any experience with the ShipXplorer dongle?
One of my dongles tried self immolate and is of no further use.
I’m currently running a V.3 dongle an TV amp for AIS and thinking about replacing it with a ShipXplorer filtered and amped dongle if anyone has some good things to say.
Adding the TV amp improved the range a bit.
Thanks,
S.
I’ve just another “almost plausible” DX. This time Shipxplorer is showing it.
Again, I didn’t see it soon enough to see the ship that is supposed to have sent the data.
(range is 600NM)
In the wake of the ADSBexchange sale, a couple of AIS tracking sites have now been bought by a firm providing commodities data & analytics. Seems like a trend developing.
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I went AIS crazy these days 
few years ago one guy asked me to build him AIS antenna+dongle+OpenCPN for his fishing boat and being in RTL-SDR world from the beginning we built it together and that was fun project, that is how everything started. Last year I installed a dozen receivers on river boats/tankers etc. mainly as backup to (old) primary systems and one important reason because the crew is constantly changing, as between ships and often due to the very nature of the job, they go abroad and so on.
I live inland on the banks of the Danube and Sava rivers which are very busy with both cargo and passenger ships so these days I built one for me 
, to serve as data feeder to agregator sites.
I dug up an old laptop and decided to switch from all SBC-s to new setup.
I had trouble with almost all from number of reasons…
I chose Ubuntu 18.04, installed on 128GB SSD drive.
AIS_catcher install went fine, I see local info but only managed to work feeder site shipxplorer, partially, my station is shown as offline BUT all “my” ships are shown regularly on their map.
*Do you feed data directly from AIS_catcher or some other software like AIS dispatcher? What lines do I need to add in config file
I tried with this, at the end of file, I added
-N STATION SXAISD0000334 LAT 44.815 LON 20.402
-u hub.shipxplorer.com 27xxx
Secondly, I failed to install ADS-B feeders. I tried wiedehopf’s readsb and got bunch of errors like
cc -std=c11 -W -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -Wall -Werror -fno-common -O2 -DMODES_READSB_VERSION=""3.14.1597 wiedehopf git: 1ac0b86
api.c: In function ‘apiReadRequest’:
api.c:1538:0: error: ignoring #pragma GCC unroll [-Werror=unknown-pragmas]
_unroll_32
cc1: all warnings being treated as errors
Makefile:125: recipe for target ‘api.o’ failed
make: *** [api.o] Error 1
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs…
[ERROR] Error in line 116 when executing: make “-j${THREADS}” AIRCRAFT_HASH_BITS=16 RTLSDR=yes OPTIMIZE=“$CFLAGS” “$@”
etc.
Tried both script and build from source, errors are the same.
I remember adsbreceiver.net scripts, but I think that project died long time ago.
*Can someone help me with install or is there any other way to install readsb/tar1090
Thanks to all in advance (and please excuse for long post and if there are any errors, English is not my native language)
Mickey YT9TT
For ADS-B on PC, Laptop, Thin Client etc, I use Debian11, as it is fully compatible to all ADSB software.
You can build piaware, dump1090-fa on Ubuntu 18 using source code by scripts given at following Github site:
ADS-B on Ubuntu
https://github.com/abcd567a/piaware-ubuntu-debian-amd64/blob/master/README.md
Feed directly from AIS-catcher
For each station, add following
-u [URL or IP] [PORT]
Automated installation of AIS-catcher:
https://github.com/abcd567a/install-aiscatcher
Many thanks @abcd567, I did used your script for AIS_catcher.
I did have dump1090-fa previously, I might consider installing it again. Just wanted to try something else with wiedehopf’s version.
I have never used Debian before, basically I know they are “same but different” but I am somewhat familiar with Ubuntu from before.
I will check config file and see what could be wrong.
The problem is NOT with @wiedehopf 's readsb, it installs smoothly on Debian, and Raspbian. Problem is with Ubuntu, which has missing or bad dependency packages.
I started with Red Hat, then quit it within few months, and used Ubuntu for several years, then tried Debian, and found it much better than Ubuntu because of its very good collection of dependency packages. For last two years, my main Linux OS has been Debian.
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Do you familiar with docker? Docker can solve all your dependency headaches.
I can help your station up within 15 minutes.
DM me if still unclear.
See my 4 stations with docker
https://hpradar.com
Hi @ngtrthanh, I already listened to @abcd567, fresh Debian and his scripts, all is now OK. AIS is also ok on another dongle.
I choose readsb and it is running ok fa+fr24 but I noticed that MLAT is not working. Local map, on first loading, is also way off, seems like I am missed to configure coordinates/altitude?
What else is not entered for MLAT to work? Don’t remember if I saw something to enter during install process.
Which MLAT?
Flightaware or Flightradar24?
If you have problem with FR24 mlat, then this is because FR24 allows Mlat from RPi only, that also if you choose “receiver=dvbt”
For Flightaware Mlat to work you need to enter your location (latiyude and longitude) on your myADSB page by clicking gear icon at top-right and scrolling down to find location settings option.
https://flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/
Thanks! I remember that fr24 stopped using MLAT from other decoders and for Flightaware i forgot about gearbox option. Now it is all OK. Two dongles are working just fine, one for AIS one for ADS-b, CPU/network usage is low so there is maybe space for another one for live atc stream, weather balloon chasing software or something like that.
Must build better antennas first 
Many thanks to all!
73 Mickey YT9TT
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I’m just starting to look at Weak Signal Propagation Reporter known as WSPR. I should have a VHF receiver going in the next week using a Pi.
S
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Yep, I know about digimods WSJT/FT8/WSPR ; my ham radio club has better (contest) location and very good beverage antenna system for shortwave so operators use it there.
Not to go too far from the topic of the forum I read somewhere that there is theory about using WSPR and other mod’s to calculate path of MH370…
For now AIS + ADS-B is more than enough to play with antennas and software filters coax etc.
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