The use of a cheap or already available VHF transceiver (a radiotelephone, for example) along with a PC equipped with a basic sound card (with line-in) is an alternative, cost-efficient method for sharing your AIS-data with us (as it doesn't require a dedicated AIS receiver).
Unfortunately, only a few cheap VHF transceivers have an accessible discriminator output available (if there is an available discriminator output on your VHF device, though, you can find quick instructions on data sharing with MarineTraffic via a VHF receiver by following this link).
In most cases, the user has to modify the VHF unit in order to gain access to the unfiltered audio feed (this is required in order to decode AIS signals) by tapping into the radio's discriminator output. For this purpose, basic electronics knowledge and basic to intermediate soldering skills will be required (depending on the transceiver type).
Then, you have to use a data-forwarding utility to share your data with MarineTraffic. This is how the equipment setup should look like once you are done:
If you are interested in using a VHF receiver to share your data with MarineTraffic and want to find specific instructions on tapping into your device's discriminator output, you can find all the necessary instructions in the following guide: