Thank you 
When looking at a wide slice of spectrum like that, it’s important to take the antenna into account.
A broad band antenna like a disc cone will give a relatively flat response.
or you can characterise your existing antenna by using your “nose source” *. (then subtract one plot from the other)
* That’s a “Noise Source” to anyone without the BG7TBL device.
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Yep!
I know you have one of those!!
How do you install that on a Pi?
I’ve never done it. <20 characters>
The AIS-catcher have added web interface including map.
I removed old built (by renaming the folder) and ran installtion script again to install the latest version of AIS-catcher which has the web interface. Copy pasted old config to new with addition of “-N 8383” to show web interface (map) on IP-of-PI:8383,
EDIT: Added “-N 8383” in the installation script, no need to do it manually now.
Now no need to install AIS-Dispatcher or OpenCPN or any other App to locally view the map.
Another Info: I have ordered ShipXplorer AIS Dongle from Amazon. Expected to reach after new year holidays. It has built-in 162 MHz Filter and LNA. The ShipXplorer is actually sister company of AirNav / Radarbox24.
This is what I have done to upgrade to latest version of AIS-catcher:
sudo mv /usr/share/aiscatcher /usr/share/aiscatcher-old
sudo bash -c "$(wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abcd567a/install-aiscatcher/master/install-aiscatcher.sh)"
cat /usr/share/aiscatcher-old/aiscatcher.conf ##Coped config
sudo nano /usr/share/aiscatcher/aiscatcher.conf ##Pasted config and added new line -N 8383
sudo systemctl restart aiscatcher
CLICK ON SCREENSHOT TO SEE LARGER SIZE
Does the AIS dongle deff have a filter & LNA in it, can’t find any reference to it on the net.
When I receive it, I will open the plastic cover and see. I will also take photograph of internals and post here.
Please see these two posts:
https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/does-anyone-monitor-ais-ship-and-vessel-tracking/53634/249
https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/does-anyone-monitor-ais-ship-and-vessel-tracking/53634/250
I have now modified my “install-aiscatcher.sh” script. I builds the latest source code (which has -N .
The default config file is as follows
Code:
sudo nano /usr/share/aiscatcher/aiscatcher.conf
-d 00000162
-v 10
-M DT
-gr TUNER 38.6 RTLAGC off
-s 2304k
-p 3
-o 4
-u 127.0.0.1 10110
-N 8383
The announcement on completion of installation also clearly shows that web interface i(Map etc) is available at IP-OF-Pi:8383
CLICK ON SCREENSHOT TO SEE LARGER SIZE
Awesome.
I rebuilt my AIS Pi last night not knowing about this and just copied in my .conf file.
After reading about the change I added the -N variable and I now have the web pages and map complete with a SAR plane
S.
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If you add 2 lines like shown below, the 2nd line will start showing distance of ships from your station.
Currently it is showing 
In my config file, I have added these two lines:
-N 8383
-N STATION TORONTO LAT 43.6 LON -79.6
EDIT:
I have updated script to display both the new features when announcing completion of installation
CLICK ON SCREENSHOT TO SEE LARGER SIZE
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I put that second line in without the site name. It crashed when i used a negative LAT.
It worked OK when i put it in the command line.
I added a site name and all working now.
S.
Edit. It was a negative latitude that caused it to crash.
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After successful installation of new version of AIS-catcher which has Web server with map and statistics, I wanted to uninstall AIS-Dispatcher. This program was installed without sudo apt install or sudo dpkg -i`. It was installed by some script from AISHub.
I could not find instructions on AISHub how to uninstall and completely remove all its files & folders.
They have made this program in a tricky way by using loginctl instead of systemctl. As the loginctl is very unfamilier to common user, this seems to be intended to prevent most users to have any control over their App.
However after some investigation and Googling I discovered following commands to enable and disable the AIS-Dispatcher:
sudo loginctl enable-linger [USER]
sudo loginctl disable-linger [USER]
By checking my Pi, I found The [USER] for AIS-Dispatcher is “ais”
I finally disabled the AIS-Dispatcher by following commands:
sudo loginctl terminate-user ais
sudo loginctl disable-linger ais
sudo reboot
I have a problem with Shipxplorer crashing and not restarting.
It has been happening quite regularly and no amount of starting fresh seems to make a difference.
Yesterday I removed a brand new microSD card from its wrapper and used the Raspberry Pi imager to write a fresh Raspery Pi OS 32 bit (with GUI).
Installed it into a Pi4 2 GB and let it start and do its thing.
Used Putty to SSH into it and did the following 3 things;
- Turn on VNC
- Run the Install from here
- Edit the config file using sudo nano /usr/share/aiscatcher/aiscatcher.conf
It runs happily for an hour to a couple of days and then just crashes with
pi@AIS:~ $ sudo systemctl status aiscatcher
● aiscatcher.service - AIS-catcher
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/aiscatcher.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: inactive (dead) since Fri 2022-12-30 11:13:18 AEDT; 2h 1min ago
Process: 1236 ExecStart=/bin/bash /usr/share/aiscatcher/start-ais.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 1236 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
CPU: 2h 2min 7.422s
Dec 30 11:13:12 AIS aiscatcher[1237]: {"class":"AIS","device":"AIS-catcher","rxtime":"20221230001312","scaled":true,"channel":"B","nmea":["!AIVDM,1,1,,B,404k1EQvK?0=<bEthUb:JhW00<1d,0*42"],"signalpower":-31.191364,"ppm":1.157407,"mmsi":>
Dec 30 11:13:14 AIS aiscatcher[1237]: {"class":"AIS","device":"AIS-catcher","rxtime":"20221230001314","scaled":true,"channel":"B","nmea":["!AIVDM,1,1,,B,14`Uu`0001:GLIabF2:uh64v08B1,0*26"],"signalpower":-19.128841,"ppm":0.578704,"mmsi":>
Dec 30 11:13:15 AIS aiscatcher[1237]: {"class":"AIS","device":"AIS-catcher","rxtime":"20221230001315","scaled":true,"channel":"B","nmea":["!AIVDM,1,1,,B,B7Ohg0P0=:Uo8lJUBKaGswWQl<0B,0*39"],"signalpower":-32.812496,"ppm":-2.314815,"mmsi">
Dec 30 11:13:17 AIS aiscatcher[1237]: {"class":"AIS","device":"AIS-catcher","rxtime":"20221230001317","scaled":true,"channel":"A","nmea":["!AIVDM,2,1,9,A,55>mwR82AwKW<HIKJ20tt<j0AE884r2222222216LiFV87=60NhEDnA8,0*66","!AIVDM,2,2,9,A,?g`>
Dec 30 11:13:18 AIS aiscatcher[1237]: cb transfer status: 1, canceling...
Dec 30 11:13:18 AIS aiscatcher[1237]: ----------------------
Dec 30 11:13:18 AIS aiscatcher[1237]: [AIS engine v0.42 #0] total: 38012 msgs
Dec 30 11:13:18 AIS aiscatcher[1237]: Reattaching kernel driver failed!
Dec 30 11:13:18 AIS systemd[1]: aiscatcher.service: Succeeded.
Dec 30 11:13:18 AIS systemd[1]: aiscatcher.service: Consumed 2h 2min 7.422s CPU time.
This is the config file
-v 10
-M DT
-u 192.168.178.154 10101
-u 127.0.0.1 10101
-u 5.9.207.224 6239
-u 31.172.90.245 45797
-u hub.shipxplorer.com 45177
-u hub.shipxplorer.com 28367
-gr TUNER 49.6 RTLAGC off
-p 0
-o 4
-u 127.0.0.1 10110
-N 8383
-N STATION MELBOURNE LAT -37.37 LON 145.04
Any suggestions as to the cause or where to look for the problem would be greatly appreciated./
S.
(1) Most common causes are:
- A dying dongle (Try another dongle)
- A bad USB extender cable (remove or replace USB cable)
- A bad USB port of Pi (try another port)
- Low voltage (try another power supply)
RPI Low Voltage Check
sudo dmesg --ctime | grep voltage
If no output, Voltage is OK
(2) What is output of this command? (possible file corruption)
cat /usr/share/aiscatcher/start-ais.sh
This is output of my healty system:
abcd@debian11:~$ cat /usr/share/aiscatcher/start-ais.sh
#!/bin/sh
CONFIG=""
while read -r line; do CONFIG="${CONFIG} $line"; done < /usr/share/aiscatcher/aiscatcher.conf
cd /usr/share/aiscatcher
/usr/local/bin/AIS-catcher ${CONFIG}
The dongle is an RTL-SDR.COM v3 and happily runs again with a restart command. I will try and swap it out but running short on supply at the moment.
The dongle is plugged directly into the Pi4. No cable.
Tried all 4 ports
No low voltage messgae. It is run using a PoE splitter from a managed PoE 8 port switch.
#!/bin/sh
CONFIG=""
while read -r line; do CONFIG="${CONFIG} $line"; done < /usr/share/aiscatcher/aiscatcher.conf
cd /usr/share/aiscatcher
/usr/local/bin/AIS-catcher ${CONFIG}
pi@AIS:~ $
I’ll run it from the command line and see if I can find the reason for the crash.
S.
Try to run it using following command
Note: To break out of continous flow of data resulting by following command, press Ctrl and C keys togather
abcd@debian11:~$ sudo systemctl stop aiscatcher
abcd@debian11:~$ sudo bash /usr/share/aiscatcher/start-ais.sh
AIS-catcher (build Dec 29 2022) v0.42
(C) Copyright 2021-2022 jvde-github and other contributors
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Searching for device with SN 00000162.
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
UDP: open socket for host: 127.0.0.1, port: 10110, filter: OFF
UDP: open socket for host: 10.0.0.10, port: 10101, filter: OFF
UDP: open socket for host: 5.9.207.224, port: xxxxx, filter: OFF
UDP: open socket for host: ais.vesselfinder.com, port: xxxx, filter: OFF
UDP: open socket for host: hub.shipxplorer.com, port: xxxxx, filter: OFF
UDP: open socket for host: 54.204.25.151, port: xxxx, filter: OFF
UDP: open socket for host: data.aishub.net, port: xxxx, filter: OFF
HTML Server running at port 8383
[R82XX] PLL not locked!
Allocating 15 zero-copy buffers
Device : RTL2838UHIDIR
Settings : rate 2304K freqoffset 38 format CU8 tuner 42.099998 rtlagc OFF biastee OFF buffer_count 2
Model #0 : [AIS engine v0.42] ps_ema ON afc_wide OFF droop ON fp_ds OFF
{"class":"AIS","device":"AIS-catcher","rxtime":"20221230072503","scaled":true,"channel":"B","nmea":["!AIVDM,1,1,,B,14eGckh001JDSl8HuvJJ1osp0l0B,0*62"],"signalpower":-43.541355,"ppm":-0.578704,"mmsi":316009423,"status":0,"status_text":"Under way using engine","turn":0,"speed":0.100000,"accuracy":false,"lon":-79.394768,"lat":43.635372,"heading":253}
{"class":"AIS","device":"AIS-catcher","rxtime":"20221230072503","scaled":true,"channel":"A","nmea":["!AIVDM,1,1,,A,14eHd6M000rDUQ>Hv37dR5820d0H,0*32"],"signalpower":-40.045383,"ppm":-3.761574,"mmsi":316025881,"status":13,"status_text":"Reserved","turn":0,"speed":0.000000,"accuracy":true,"lon":-79.388947,"lat":43.637383,"heading":164}
^C----------------------
[AIS engine v0.42 #0] total: 2 msgs
Thanks, I’ll try that next.
Currnetly running
AIS-catcher -v 10 -M DT -u 192.168.178.154 10101 -u 127.0.0.1 10101 -u 5.9.207.224 62nnn -u 31.172.90.245 45nnn -u hub.shipxplorer.com 45nnn -u hub.shipxplorer.com 28nnn -gr TUNER 49.6 RTLAGC off -p 1 -o 2 -u 127.0.0.1 10110 -N 8383 -N STATION MELBOURNE LAT -37.37 LON 145.04
~~~
Nearly 8 hours so far