Blog post: Running a Roaming AIS Station

[bkeepers]

Note

This PR is against #94, so the diff is huge. Here is the relevant commit: 5b0ac6d

This is a draft of a blog post on using ais-forwarder to report to marinetraffic, etc. It's the type of content I think we can post a lot more of on the new website. It's quick an easy to write, and helps new users find cool things to do with Signal K.

cc @hkapanen in case you have any thoughts or feedback

[hkapanen]

This is a wonderful, practical and to-the-point article -- thanks for writing it!

I'd suggest adding a reference to this low-cost AIS receiver that can simply be connected via USB to the computer running the SK server, making the starter kit even simpler and more affordable.

[hkapanen]

Ah, you could also consider mentioning aisreporter for those that lack gnss receiver on their AIS receiver HW (like dAISy owners) or don't have AIS receiver at all but still wish to have their location tracker but the services.

[bkeepers]

This is a wonderful, practical and to-the-point article -- thanks for writing it!

Thanks, and you're welcome! I'm hoping we can inject a little life into the website with content like this.

I'd suggest adding a reference to this low-cost AIS receiver that can simply be connected via USB to the computer running the SK server, making the starter kit even simpler and more affordable.

It looks like that is sold out everywhere. Do you know if it's being replaced by another model?

Ah, you could also consider mentioning aisreporter for those that lack gnss receiver on their AIS receiver HW (like dAISy owners) or don't have AIS receiver at all but still wish to have their location tracker but the services.

Good call! I've updated the post to include both your suggestions.

[tkurki]

Sharing my thoughts, I don't have any absolute position on this:

More HOWTOs is great, but something I've been wondering about is what's the best way to publish them and keep them available and up to date?

Case in point is the Feature How Tos section of the docs embedded in the server docs: https://demo.signalk.io/documentation/features/anchoralarm/anchoralarm.html

They are searchable in your own installation, usable offline and there's at least an implicit promise of them being up to date - or at least there's a technical process to keep them up to date. Except that we need to publish a new server version to push new content out.

I think blog posts without a concerted effort to promote new entries in social media & our own publishing channels has a bit questionable ROI.

One way forward could be fashioning both a blog post and a docs Feature How To entry out of the same content.

[bkeepers]

More HOWTOs is great, but something I've been wondering about is what's the best way to publish them and keep them available and up to date?

I'm open to ideas, but here's how I am thinking of it as I was working on this new site:

1. The documentation built into the server is focused on the Signal K server itself. It is always up to date, accurate for the version of the server you're running, and only needs updated when the server changes. This includes installation, configuration, APIs, etc. There should not be a need to update docs in the server based on something changing outside of that code base (e.g. plugins being published/deprecated).

2. The website covers the boarder ecosystem and community. The blog specifically is a steady stream of content about what is happening in the spec, server, plugins, etc. It doesn't necessarily need to be evergreen. (If it gets enough attention, it may be worth investing effort to keep the most important content up to date, but there does not have to be a commitment to keeping it 100% up to date.)

Does that make sense?

I think blog posts without a concerted effort to promote new entries in social media & our own publishing channels has a bit questionable ROI.

A few thoughts about this:

1. I definitely think we should promote this content. At a minimum we can pull the feed into the #announcements channel in Discord. We can also auto publish to other social channels and we could add an email subscription (if there is interest).

2. I still think there is value to this content existing in a medium that the community controls. Right now you have to dig through Discord channels and GitHub/npm searches to figure out how to do pretty basic things. Having it searchable on the website (on my list to add once it's live) and indexed in search engines seems valuable alone, and having it in a place where people can get updates or discover related topics is even more valuable.

3. This kind of content is such low effort. It took me 10 minutes to write, and I have a big list of similar posts like this I could write. I think I've seen at least 10 minutes worth of discussion in Discord about this very topic. So even if only a handful of people read this, I think the effort into it is so low it's worth trying.

That all being said, we may publish this website and in a few weeks/months decide it's not worth the effort (which may be your experience from last time a round, but I'm the naive new guy here 😆). And in that case I'm open to moving it elsewhere.

[astuder]

I'd suggest adding a reference to this low-cost AIS receiver that can simply be connected via USB to the computer running the SK server, making the starter kit even simpler and more affordable.

It looks like that is sold out everywhere. Do you know if it's being replaced by another model?

The dAISy 2+ should be back in stock by end of the month (add another two weeks for resellers). But the other models are all in stock. Thanks for the link :) Personally, I'd prefer https://shop.wegmatt.com/ instead of Tindie. (I'm the developer of the dAISy AIS receivers)