If you are interested in getting started plotting ships in your area, then read on.  There are always many questions asking how to get started, how to see ships on web, what radio works best, and more.  This article will run through the most common and try to lay out in detail what you should do to get started.

Here's a quick summary

• You need hardware to receive the AIS signal
• You need software to process the AIS information
• You need software to upload the AIS information to the web
  
• You need a web server to view the processed information on the web
• You need the proper scripts to build the pages that display the maps

 Now we will break down each part in how it relates to shipplotting.com.

The Hardware

There are several different makers of hardware for receiving AIS signals.  We list several of the most popular in our hardware links section.  There is also a way you can modify a regular VHF radio to deliver the audio signal to your PC via the sound card.  From listening to users for a long time now, you can't go wrong with a $189 investment in a dedicated SR-161 Smart Radio from MillTech Marine.  They have just about the cheapest dedicated solution you will find commercially.  If you are absolutely into saving money, you can find an old VHF radio and modify it by following the guides at the discriminator.nl site also listed in our hardware links page.  It requires you to use a sound card mic in or aux in though.

The Software

By and far, the best software you will find is the ShipPlotter software.  There is no other software package like it available.  Bev with COAA is the owner and creator of the software, he dedicates many hours to the design and feature upgrades that are ongoing with the project.  The software will allow you to decode the AIS signals that are fed in through a multitude of different ways.  The sound card is the most popular for cost concerned people.  ShipPlotter also lets you input AIS feeds through serial connections and over tcp/ip connections.  So you can plug in an IP address and it will pull data in directly from the receiver, over the internet. 

Sharing Information

The shipplotter software has a unique sharing feature, registration required to use the sharing feature (about $30 US).  The small registration fee is well worth what you get with the software package.  Once registered, you can begin uploading data with the shipplotter network share, or you can upload it to your own server and database.  The software will allow you share with up to two servers at the same time.  Forwarding data from one server to another is also possible.

Setting up a Web Server

Now you want to see the data on the world wide web.  Things get a little bit tricky here.  The shipplotter software helps here a little by offering a SQL script you can use to setup a mySQL database for storing the ship information.  If you want to view the ship data through a web page, there a couple different options. 

Getting the scripts working

You could setup your own map, our files section has a script that works with the shipplotter files.  The files are meant for users that have some knowledge of PHP, mySQL, and Apache.  Support is limited to the forums for these files, and we will try to help as much as possible.

Uploading to ShipPlotting.com

The easiest option is that you can simply upload your data to our site, shipplotting.com .  By putting our server info in your share settings in shipplotter, our server will take the data and store it for you.  You just register for free and tell us which ships are yours, by identifying your shipplotter number.  You can then setup a map for the world to see and your data will be live on the web.  There is no fee for this and there never will be.  The features of shipplotting.com are to numerous to list, but if you surf around the site, you will start to notice the amount of work that has gone into the site.  Some key features to note:

• You can add photos from the map pages, and all ship info will be auto added (mmsi, name, callsign)
• Custom chart images can be uploaded and displayed directly on top of the Google map.
• Custom Icons can be used to call out items of interest on each map

Again, the feature list is long, this just a brief summary.

Conclusion

Hopefully this clears some of the questions surrounding ship plotting and what it is.  If you have any questions please ask them in the forums and they will be answered promptly.