ShipXplorer AIS dongles keep failing

[davemcallister]

Hi everyone,

I have had two ShipXplorer AIS dongles fail on me in the past 6 months.  The first one failed last December after years of use, so I replaced it.  The next one worked fine until yesterday, but now it is no longer recognized by the computer.  I have tried different USB ports, multiple reboots, reinstalled Powershell, etc. with no luck. 

These are the same symptoms that the first dongle displayed.  I tested the first dongle on the computer and the behaviour is still the same.

The Powershell command line I have been using is:

cd c:\Radio\AISCatcher
.\AIS-catcher -d:0 -gr TUNER 45.0 RTLAGC off BIASTEE off -a 192K -v 10 -u 127.0.0.1 10110 -M DT -N 8100 LAT 49.7 LON -123.1 REALTIME on SHARE_LOC on FILE stat.bin BACKUP 10


and the error I get is:

usb_open error -12
Error: RTLSDR: cannot open device.
UDP: close socket for host: 127.0.0.1, port: 10110

It does not show up in Device Manager - when it is plugged in, Device Manager re-enumerates, but no new devices appear.

The dongle is isolated from the antenna with a lightning arrestor and a multicoupler, and none of the other equipment connected is having issues, so a surge isn't the cause.

Has anyone else experienced this?  Is it possible that a Windows update has done something to my access to the ports?  Or is it just bad luck?

Any suggestions would be welcome.  Thanks in advance!

de VE7HUN

[Runway 31]

Are you using another dongle and have you numbered them,  Looks like another service is grabbing your dongle first before ship explorer

Alan

[davemcallister]

No, I am only attaching one dongle at a time, and I am rebooting between each attempt. 

[carterodell]

Since Device Manager isn't detecting the hardware at all when re-enumerating, the RTL-SDR chip itself or its onboard LDO voltage regulator might have burned out. Have you checked if the dongle gets unusually hot or if Zadig shows any unknown USB devices when plugged in?