Things are not quite to a usable state, but this gives the basic idea.
The waterlevel.py contains a working example that can convert a params
dictionary of values into a BitVector.  That BitVector needs to be
packed into the payload of an AIS Msg 8 (binary message).  That code
should be coming soon.  Requires the <a href="http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~kak/dist/">BitVector</a> library (tested with version 1.2).

<pre>
   cd ais
   ./waterlevel.py --verbose --unit-test
</pre>

Look in <a href="waterlevel">waterlevel</a> for the autogenerated
epydoc based documentation.<p>

-kurt 30-Nov-2006