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ShipPlotter
Sebastian Olias avatar
Written by Sebastian Olias
Updated over 3 months ago

Ship Plotter is a chart-plotting utility which decodes the digital AIS messages using the sound card of your PC. You need a suitable VHF band radio-receiver (or an AIS receiver) to be able to pick-up such signals (tuned in one of the two available AIS channels - 161.975 Mhz or 162.025 Mhz / VHF 87 or 88 old channels). The incoming information is decoded by Ship Plotter and can also be displayed on your computer's screen.

If you own an AIS receiver with serial data output or a VHF radio with a discriminator output already available, you may use Ship Plotter to forwarding AIS-data to MarineTraffic.

Developer

OS

Windows (W2K, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11)

Version

v12.5.5.6 (06.11.2017)

Costs

21 days test version

  • 25€ private use

  • 215€ professional and corporate use

Categories

Chart Plotter, Audio decoder, Forwarder

Pro

  • easy configuration

  • can decode Audio

Contra

  • only available for Windows

  • not free of charge

Requirements

  • You can connect the receiver to your PC via USB or direct serial connection

  • You have identified the COM port assigned to the device on your computer

  • You have requested to share AIS data and have received the IP and port information

  • Your operating system is supported by this software

Configuration

  • Click on the wrench and I/O symbol in the top menu

  • In the new window, look at the Serial Input section

    • Enable a NMEA field

    • Enter only the number of your COM port

    • Set the baud rate of your device, which is usually 38,400

  • Now, look at the UDP/IP section

    • Activate one of the fields

    • Enter the remote IP or DNS you received

    • Enter the remote port you received

  • Once setup is complete, click OK in the bottom right corner to close the window and save the changes

You will now be back in the main window. Click on the green circle button in the top menu to activate the receiver. If everything works correctly, you should see ships on the map.

Next, access your station on MarineTraffic to verify if the data is being received. Please allow a few minutes for the statistics to reflect a successful reception.

Links

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