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Capturing raw AIS data using rtl_fm and decoding using aisdecoder v2

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James Mead edited this page May 3, 2015 · 2 revisions

Capturing raw AIS data (2nd attempt)

I captured 4 x raw AIS data files by running the following commands on my Mac laptop while crossing the Solent on a WightLink car ferry which departed Yarmouth late afternoon of Sunday, 19th April:

  • rtl_fm -f 161975000 -p 45 -s 48k > 2015-04-19-test-161975000-p45-s48k.raw
  • rtl_fm -f 161975000 -p 50 -s 48k > 2015-04-19-test-161975000-p50-s48k.raw
  • rtl_fm -f 162025000 -p 45 -s 48k > 2015-04-19-test-162025000-p45-s48k.raw
  • rtl_fm -f 162025000 -p 50 -s 48k > 2015-04-19-test-162025000-p50-s48k.raw

This resulted in the following raw data files:

Notes

  • I chose the frequency (-f option) values based on the official AIS frequencies i.e. 161.975 MHz & 162.025 MHz.
  • I didn't have GQRX working on my new laptop, so I couldn't check the signal strengths and just recorded blind.
  • I chose the value of the PPM error (-p option) based on running the rtl_test command and seeing what the value settled to after a couple of minutes.

Decoding raw AIS data

I decoded the AIS NMEA sentences from the raw files captured above using aisdecoder on the Ubuntu Virtual Box VM running on my Mac laptop. I ran the following commands:

  • aisdecoder -h 127.0.0.1 -p 1234 -a file -c mono -d -f 2015-04-19-test-161975000-p45-s48k.raw 2> 2015-04-19-test-161975000-p45-s48k.nmea
  • aisdecoder -h 127.0.0.1 -p 1234 -a file -c mono -d -f 2015-04-19-test-161975000-p50-s48k.raw 2> 2015-04-19-test-161975000-p50-s48k.nmea
  • aisdecoder -h 127.0.0.1 -p 1234 -a file -c mono -d -f 2015-04-19-test-162025000-p45-s48k.raw 2> 2015-04-19-test-162025000-p45-s48k.nmea
  • aisdecoder -h 127.0.0.1 -p 1234 -a file -c mono -d -f 2015-04-19-test-162025000-p50-s48k.raw 2> 2015-04-19-test-162025000-p50-s48k.nmea

This resulted in decoded NMEA sentences in the following text files:

A total of 80 AIS sentences were decoded despite the west end of the Solent not having much shipping visible at the time.

I tried to use AGG Software's Online AIS Decoder to decode the NMEA sentences, but I kept getting an error. So I then found this Online AIS Message Decoder website which seemed to work ok. However, I also came across the gpsdecode Ubuntu package and I used this to convert my .nmea files into translated .json:

I used the following Ruby script to convert the JSON for type-1 NMEA sentences into a single CSV file:

require 'json'
require 'csv'

type_one_sentences = Dir['*.json'].map do |filename|
  lines = File.readlines(filename)
  sentences = lines.map { |line| JSON.parse(line) }
  sentences.select { |s| s['type'] == 1 }
end.flatten

csv = CSV.generate do |csv|
  csv << type_one_sentences.first.keys
  type_one_sentences.each { |s| csv << s.values }
end

puts csv

I then imported this CSV file into Google Spreadsheets. I then manually split it into a file for each of the two car ferries mentioned (Wight Sky & Wight Sun):

Finally I imported each of these two spreadsheets into a layer on a Google Map:

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