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off-grid AIS receiver to marinetraffic

A project log for AIS repeater

Solar powered AIS repeater, to relay AIS messages from receiver on nearby hill back home via LoRa

stevesteve 07/11/2016 at 10:410 Comments

I have linked the remote dAISy AIS receiver to marinetraffic

Receiver altitude is approx. 230m ASL, so should be considerably better than the receiver in my loft, although direct comparisons are not possible due to different hardware.

Station coverage and (approximate!) location.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/stations/910/

Remote unit battery level monitor real-time
https://thingspeak.com/channels/113422

Compare the receiption to the RTL-SDR+Moxon loop receiver in my loft at sea level,
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/stations/1618/

The remote receiver picks up vessels in Oban Bay more reliably (not surprising as it can see over the top of several hills compared to my home station), and sees 'around the corner' into the Sound of Mull better, being able to track the Loch Fyne CalMac ferry on most of its route from Lochaline to Fishnish on the Isle of Mull.

It sacrifices coverage up Loch Creran.


Todo:
* convert daisy to 3.3v operation. I have received advice from Adrian Studer on how to fix excess power drain when operating the dAISy at 3.3v by isolating the 3.3v LDO reg.
* convert the AIS parser script that powers the Twitter feeds @ObanAIS and @ObanSARwatch to accept AIS sentences from the remote receiver.

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