What is NMEA 0183?

NMEA 0183 is a voluntary industry standard, first released in March of 1983. It has been updated from time to time; the latest release, currently (August 2001) Version 3.0, July 2001, is available from the NMEA office (Warning: the price for non-members is 250 US$).

What is the NMEA format for GPS?

Today in the world of GPS, NMEA is a standard data format supported by all GPS manufacturers, much like ASCII is the standard for digital computer characters in the computer world. The purpose of NMEA is to give equipment users the ability to mix and match hardware and software.

What is the time stamp in the NMEA message?

All NMEA messages start with the $ character, and each data field is separated by a comma. GP represent that it is a GPS position (GL would denote GLONASS). 181908.00 is the time stamp: UTC time in hours, minutes and seconds. 3404.7041778 is the latitude in the DDMM.MMMMM format.

What would happen if there was no NMEA?

For example, VisualGPS software (free), accepts NMEA-formatted data from any GPS receiver and graphically displays it. Without a standard such as NMEA, it would be time-consuming and expensive to write and maintain such software.