A method of demodulating an AIS signal by receiving the signal, sampling the signal, estimating the carrier frequency, estimating the complex conjugate of the carrier frequency contribution to each sample, multiplying each sample by the complex conjugate and calling the results a base-banded sampled signal (BBSS), correlating the BBSS with known preambles, identifying a maximum magnitude of the BBSS/preamble correlation and its location and the associated preamble, computing a complex inner product of the preamble with a segment of the BBSS, estimating the carrier phase as an argument function of the eighth step result, estimating a complex conjugate of the carrier phase contribution to the BBSS, multiplying each fifth step result starting at the location of the maximum magnitude of the BBSS/preamble correlation by the tenth step result, and demodulating the results starting at that location.