As we finish the work on ANRB we are starting the last stage of AirNav ShipTrax development. As we would prefer to beta test it with users, like you, experienced in beta testing.
We would like to ask if any of you have an interest in ships and is interested in helping us with it. You don't need an AIS receiver as the program may work by receiving data directly from a TCP/IP AIS feed.
Well I don't have the AIS receiver, but if you have a feed from around Sydney Australia somewhere you can put my name down as a tester.
You have to promise to include a "sonar ping" alert sound though :)
there already seems to be a bit of interest in this along the east coast of Australia
(http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5631/20090926114204.jpg)
I would like to beta test ShipTrax, and in fact might even be first in the queue to buy one as well!!
I have a keen interest in ships, and in fact run ShipPlotter everyday alongside ANRB. I don't have an AIS receiver.
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2438/3955287426_a6a8e113f5_m.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarbat/3955287426/sizes/o/)
Airnav,
I would also be interested in testing Shiptrax.
CAM
Tarbat, CAM: do you have an AIS receiver?
No, I don't have an AIS receiver. I've been about to buy one for months, but was waiting for the Airnav one ;)
Ok so don't buy. Our is better: you will have RS232, Ethernet and USB all in one. Add to this a dual-band receiver. Problem is that it will only be available in December (and that is the reason for the delay in this project).
That's why I'm waiting for the Airnav hardware!!!
Will I still be able to beta test without the hardware? What would be cool is a way of using the ShipPlotter data feed!!!
You can use it without hardware. Rgd Shipplotter data feed: for commercial reasons they wouldn't allow us to do so. Anyway we believe that sooner or later all feds will have to unified.
Maybe just for beta testing, it might be worth finding a way of using a Google Earth KML file as input.
The attached file points to the Google Earth output server from my ShipPlotter session. Just open it to see what's on my ShipPlotter session. In that way, anything on the ShipPlotter network would appear in ShipTrax, as long as the end user subscribes to the ShipPlotter nertwork. Simples...
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3534/3956105816_8a77845c17_m.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarbat/3956105816/sizes/o/)
Quote from: AirNav Development on September 26, 2009, 03:06:20 PMwe believe that sooner or later all feds will have to unified.
Now that will be one exciting piece of hardware!. Google are already tracking people by their mobile phone, Some automobiles already have tracking capability.
Ships/Aircraft - whats left?
You guys better change your name to EarthNav, should keep you covered for the next 20 or so years :)
There are already proposals that all airside vehicles at airports shoud be fitted with ADS-B, so we could have Tug-nav, Sweeper-nav, Bloke-wth-the-bats-nav, Firetruck-nav... the opportunities are endless.
Rod
AirNav,
I would also be interested in Beta Testing ShipTrax with you.
I don't have any hardware as I too like Chris have been waiting for the AirNav one to be released for well over a year now...
I might be second in the queue behind him for the box...it has Ethernet you see! ;^)
But fir the meantime I have a good ADSL line with which to receive the TCP/IP AIS feed.
Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
I'm also interested in testing the beta ShipTrax.
At this moment i'm already receiving AIS-signals using the discriminator-tap of a scanning receiver in combination with Shipplotter.
Regards,
Dirk.
Anyone know of any other TCP/IP AIS feeds. AIS Simulator works okay for generating a simulated TCP/IP AIS feed, I wondered if anyone knew of others that are available.
Airnav,
No I dont have an AIS receiver, not sure how well it would work, I am 40+ miles from the coast.
I see on twitter that there are 5 "pre-deploy" shiptrax units being tested "all over" :)
http://twitter.com/AirNavSystems
Hello,
You can put me on the list. No AIS receiver but I couldn't get much closer to the Pacific Ocean if that helps :-)
I'm not a programmer. I'm just really good at finding bugs :-)
Regards,
Darryl
Anyone else involved in beta testing, you can generate a TCP input for ShipTrax using my sp2trax utility (attached). You don't need an AIS receiver. Instead, this uses the Shipplotter network as a source of ships. To use:
1. Startup Shipplotter, and make sure that the map covers your local area, and the sharing button is turned ON.
2. Startup sp2trax, and press the Start Server on Port 1515 button.
3. Configure ShipTrax beta to read port 1515.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4131/5083423830_f22343012a_o_d.jpg)
It works by reading through the list of ships in ShipPlotter, and generates AIS messages at regular intervals for each of the ships.
Thanks tarbat - a nice utility. I need to get started properly with the Beta testing and this will help a lot.
I've just spent a few days on holiday at Aberdovey on the west coast of Wales. I took the laptop and my NASA AIS 'engine' receiver, but didn't pick anything up with either ShipTrax or ShipPlotter. Looking at the ShipPlotter data now I'm back home, there isn't anything out there anyway! I don't think that the NASA receiver is particularly sensitive - especially when used with my 70cm/2m amateur mobile antenna. I was getting up to 10 miles range when I used it with ShipPlotter in the Liverpool area, but at Aberdovey I was just too far from the main shipping lanes.
The good news is that ShipTrax recognises the NASA receiver and was showing the 'startup' data line in the ShipTrax serial data test window (it sends this when power is connected to the receiver).
Regards
Allocator
Anyone know the format of the ML4 map files?
I'm trying to create an ML4 file to exactly match an OpenStreetMap image, but I need to convert the coords for the 4 corners of that map (TL, TR, BL, BR) into numbers that I can put into an ML4 file to exactly match the coordinates and zoom level.
My aim is to develop a utility to take the four coordinates, and convert them into an ML4 file.
Here's an example centred on my location:
0
2
99671?5647855886
464
38741
508401462
-20553101
0
12532839?4875021
-20272178
312215277
If not too late you can include me too.