Building a Raspberry Pi Based AIS Receiver with an RTL-SDR, Preamp and Collinear Antenna
Thank you to SARCNET (School Amateur Radio Club Network) for submitting news about their tutorial on building a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR based AIS receiver. In their tutorial they show what equipment is required and provide access to a ready to use SD Card image for the Pi that has the AIS software pre-installed and ready go. They also show how to upload data to various online AIS data aggregators like AISHub and MarineTraffic.
AIS stands for Automatic Identification System and is used by ships to broadcast their GPS locations in order to help avoid collisions and aide with rescues. An RTL-SDR with the right software can be used to receive and decode these signals, and plot ship positions on a map.
The School Amateur Radio Club Network publishes a simple project aimed at promoting the deployment of maritime Automatic Information System (AIS) receiving stations around the world using cheap RTL-SDR dongles and Raspberry Pi computers. The purpose of the project is to improve the existing terrestrial AIS receiving network by encouraging enthusiasts to setup their own AIS receiving stations and to disseminate their local vessel traffic data freely to AIS Servers. This data can then be used by many organisations involved in monitoring and improving the safety and security of shipping.
The SARCNET project, which works on all models of Raspberry Pi, makes building the AIS receiving station simple by providing pictorial construction details with a pre-packaged Raspberry Pi image to download. The free project uses open-source software and a bootable Raspberry Pi image which has been updated to use the latest Raspbian Lite operating system.
One of the attractions of building your own AIS receiving station is that some AIS servers reward you when you freely upload your local vessel tracking data. They publish your station information, showing your station position on a map and your receiving statistics like messages per hour and coverage in nautical miles. Some give you free, premium access to their AIS data, which can be viewed on their mobile apps. Even so, by operating one of these AIS receiving stations, you will have the satisfaction of making the world a safer place.
ah, what I’d give for modern Docker containers or even git repos that have working compilation steps :/
It’s notable that in 2020, the diagram for their RTL_AIS project uses a Raspberry Pi 1.
None of these works…
Following on Rudolph’s comment – In the US there is ATCS monitoring for trains. Some if the signaling is done via radio, a lot in the 900 MHz range that can be decoded with a RPi & SDR dongle then fed to a display on a PC. There is a groups.io that has the display software.
http://www.rail.watch/rwpi.html
https://groups.io/g/ATCSMonitor/topics
AIS is almost the equivalent to what Aviation has.
Both maintain tabs.
Trains, although running on fixed tracks, are only now getting this.
But as a hobby, this is another part of radio.
Enjoy it as little or as much as you want.
Rudolph