docker-shipfeeder now feeds Skydex out of the box

· network · ais · feeders

Two days ago we wrote about feeding ships from adsb.im or docker-shipfeeder with one extra AIS-catcher option. At the end of that post we said we had asked the docker-shipfeeder maintainers to add Skydex as a built-in option. That has now happened. kx1t, who maintains docker-shipfeeder and Ultrafeeder in the sdr-enthusiasts project, added it this week and announced it on our Discord.

docker-shipfeeder is AIS-catcher packed in a container, and it already sends ships to a list of networks, each switched on by its own variable. Skydex is now on that list.

What to do

  1. Sign in at skydex.online/feed, press Connect a receiver and pick Ships (AIS). The page gives you a line that starts with AIS-catcher -H https://.
  2. Your station id is the part of that line between https:// and @. Copy only that part.
  3. Add it to the environment of your shipfeeder container:
- SKYDEX_FEEDER_KEY=<your-station-id>
  1. Pull the current image and recreate the container. That's all.

The station card on /feed now shows the same variable with your id already filled in, right under the AIS-catcher line, so you can copy it from there.

If you already set it up by hand

The -H line in AISCATCHER_EXTRA_OPTIONS keeps working; nothing breaks. If you switch to the variable, take the old line out. With both in place the container sends us every batch twice.

On adsb.im the route stays the same as in the earlier post for now: Setup → Advanced → AIS / Shipfeeder, and the line goes into ais-catcher extra command line options.

Keep the id private

The station id works as the password for your station. Anyone who has it can post ships in your name. Leave it out of screenshots and shared compose files, the same way kx1t's announcement wrote it as xxxxxxxx-xxxx-….

Check that it arrives

Open the AIS page or /feed from the same network as the receiver and press Check my address. Your station page goes live with the first messages, and the ships it hears appear on the live ships map. The coverage map shows within a day which stretch of coast your antenna adds.

Thanks to kx1t for building this. The setup steps on the AIS hub and the feeder landing page are updated to match. The container's own documentation is in the docker-shipfeeder repository.

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