Cool, I got AIS data to show up on my laptop.

Easiest way to achieve this, if you don't mind spending a few boat bucks, is a Vesper XB-8000. it's all singing, and all dancing, translates between NMEA 0183, NMEA-2000, and wifi, and is a full AIS transponder. The only thing that's oddly not working on ours is translating our fluxgate compass to NMEA 2k. Having all the nav data via Wifi is pretty awesome though, we use our iPads as chartplotters, and it's great in the middle of the night to grab a phone and see what the depth below keel is.