Windows Binaries¶
Disclaimer
AIS-catcher is intended for hobbyist and research projects only. It is NOT approved for use in navigation or safety-of-life applications. Read the full disclaimer.
Installation¶
Pre-built Windows binaries are available below, with and without SDRPlay support. There are two ways to run your station:
- Managed mode (recommended) — configure and control your station from the browser.
- Manual mode — configure via command-line options.
Managed Mode¶
Download and unpack
Download the Edge build from the releases table below and unpack the ZIP file to a directory
Set up the dongle driver
Use Zadig to assign the generic WinUSB driver to your RTL-SDR dongle (once per dongle)
Launch AIS-catcher
Double-click start-GUI.bat in the unzipped folder to start AIS-catcher in managed mode
Complete the setup wizard
Open the dashboard in your browser at http://localhost:8118. On first use, the setup wizard walks you through configuring your input device and outputs, and starts the receiver:
That's it — your station is up and running. See Getting Around the Dashboard to monitor and fine-tune it.
Manual Mode¶
Alternatively, launch via the command line or start.bat (editable with Notepad) for a command-line based configuration.
Tip
If AIS-catcher won't start, install the Visual Studio runtime libraries (usually already present).
Recent Releases¶
The AIS-catcher executables are built with the latest Windows MSVC compiler. Please update your libraries before starting the executables below. Issues have been reported on Windows 10.
| Version | Win32 | x64 | Win32 + SDRPlay | x64 + SDRPlay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edge | ZIP | ZIP | ZIP | ZIP |
| v0.70 | ZIP | ZIP | ZIP | ZIP |
If you are looking for a Windows version for the latest development version, it is automatically produced by the standard workflow and referenced in the table above as Edge.