NMEA driver...do I need it?

[+CaveMountainBrewers]

From the Magellan website, the description of NMEA driver and what it does was a little confusing to me. I'm not sure what it does and what it's good for. Lil' help? Thanks

[knowschad]

From the Magellan website, the description of NMEA driver and what it does was a little confusing to me. I'm not sure what it does and what it's good for. Lil' help? Thanks

That's not something that I have ever needed to load for a Garmin GPS, but it may be necessary for a Magellan. I can't see any harm in it. Seems to be a legit GPS-related driver.

[+StarBrand]

From the Magellan website, the description of NMEA driver and what it does was a little confusing to me. I'm not sure what it does and what it's good for. Lil' help? Thanks

Try this website: http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/nmea.htm

 

Basically it just defines what the data coming off your GPS looks like to other devices. Essentially that means that a device such as your PC can receive the location information from your GPS real time. Then use it for something like plotting the position on a map, recording it as data, etc....

 

Practically speaking - of little or no use to Geocaching.

[+John in Valley Forge]

I tried to figure out what it was, because it was mentioned in my old GPSr's manual. Seemed to have something to do with hooking your GPSr up to a PC/Laptop and record your position on some external map, like Google Earth. From what I read it was very useful for sailors, using nautical maps on their PC and a handheld GPS for positioning.

 

I am sure there are other uses, that is just the one I read about.

[Keystone]

I am moving this thread from the Geocaching Topics forum to the GPS and Technology forum.

[+ecanderson]

As John alludes to above, it's primarily for connection to a PC or other device that needs the raw GPS data to use for position information. The largest use is to send data to a PC so that a PC's mapping application knows where it is. Guess that's one way to avoid tiny screens on a GPS unit <g>. Another and more recent use for NMEA data is to hook up to a scanner radio. They have versions now that use an external GPS puck or a handheld GPS that can transmit NMEA to decide what frequencies and "talk groups" to tune to as you drive down the road. Another use is to use the timestamp data for an accurate clock as is needed for some specialized instrumentation (like a large telescope system in an observatory). It's a more or less universal way of accessing the raw GPS data for a lot of interesting purposes.

[+Denis et Doris]

As far as your Magellan goes, the unit already outputs in the 3 standard formats, but this driver is used for some 3rd party mapping programs that don't accept the unit's NMEA output correctly. It is designed for the new GC/x10 line of receivers, and not for the previous models.

 

My 610 Canada already works as-is with Streets & Trips, VP and Google Earth, so it must be designed for some other program.

 

The NMEA basically transmits the location data thru the usb cable to a pc, so your laptop can now show you where you are, and provide real-time location data on a mapping program. Try it !

[seldom_sn]

To add one more function to ecanderson's list above. NMEA is used by some hard cable connected cameras (Nikon D200 for instance) to geotag photos. Of course if your timestamp agrees with the GPSr you can always use an application like Geosetter or gpisync, and eliminate the cable.