Have been on the hard for year and am now installing on a new (to me) ToughBook CF, amazing how much a years worth of epoxy fumes has erased from the brain.
So I am also having troubles getting AIS to work. Works great with Shipplotter in Windows so know it is just a config and setting in Navigatrix. First up what should be the speed setting for /tmp/aisfifo in CPN? On install it is set at 4800?

Regards,
Steve

Try this

Change line #15 from SoundDevice hw:1,0 toSave and exit.

This changes the soundcard configuration to your 'first' soundcard...which is proably what it should be.

Wait...how are you pumping in the AIS data?

The post above only applies if you are using an audio input through your soundcard.

If the data comes through another method we find out what that is and make adjustments accordingly.

Hi Moe, AIS from modified VHF and soundcard, SoundDevice is set to hw:0,0
Am going thru sound settings one click at a time. There are about 20 boats around Darwin harbour and on shipplotter am getting an ais message about every few seconds, so click sound setting, wait 1 minute and then click again. I tried to find the soundlevel log, but no joy. Been trying for a few days now, and I reckon it should be working, so very frustrating not knowing what I am missing. Probably should give it a break, do some other yucky jobs and then come back to it. :)

Sometimes it is best to walk away for a while...other times 'crash through or crash' is the means.

In the meantime I'll speculate the speed of the AIS dataport might be increased.

For example, a run of the mill gps has a data rate of 4800. In this case, a faster rate is meaningless because all the data makes it through in time for the next 'fix'. The amount of data that comes through at 4800 allows the machine a smoko. The dataport is clear for the next wad of data.

More data means the dataport needs to be faster to ship it through the dataport to keep it from being inundated. The default port speed I've seen for AIS units has been 38400...and I don't know if that is a necessity to pass the volume of data, or an illusion of speed.

It could also be the volume settings on the soundcard over/under modulated, and I don't know where the AIS_Sound_Configurator that was in v0.4 went.

The AIS sound configuration is gone for now since its still not good enough to be in the wild.
Instead use Manta->Preferences->Sound Mixer and change the volume for your capture devices manualy. Also make sure to select the right input devices for each capture in the bottom of the sound mixer page. And while you are at it verify the HW device ids which are shown under "Mixer Devices" and "Card". The right ones have to be selected in the gnuais.conf.
Now, the important thing about this is: Play around with the sound mixer values while running opencpn this way you can see if any boats appeare. And also because the sound mixer setting during your OpenCPN session will be saved and used only when OpenCPN is running. When OpenCPN is not started, the normal system default will be used for the system. This way you can have one setting for OpenCPN and another normal one for use with the other tools, like Skype for example. Where you may need different capture volume levels.

Well went away and replaced pump piston on water maker. Came back and ran CPN and mixer and in terminal entered sudo gnuais -c/etc/gnuais.conf
Then I started to get reponse every second stating 100% too high, so started lowering mike and then capture until 30%. Instantly got an AIS message in nmea monitor from aisfifo and a ship appeared. My settings need to be mike at minimum and capture about 50%.
Thanks Moe and David.
Now onto Bluetooth gps problem.

Cool!