Garmin GPS 16x 010-00258-63 User Manual

Product codes
010-00258-63
Page of 36
190-00228-08 
GPS 16x Technical Specifications  
Rev. B 
Page 11 
SOFTWARE INTERFACE 
The GPS 16x series products interface protocol design on COM1 is based on the National Marine Electronics 
Association’s NMEA 0183 ASCII interface specification. The COM2 port can receive differential GPS (DGPS) 
correction data using the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services’ RTCM SC-104 standard. These 
standards are fully defined in NMEA 0183, Version 3.0 (copies may be obtained from NMEA, 
) an
RTCM Recommended Standards For Differential Navstar GPS Service, Version 2.2, RTCM Special Committee No. 
104
 (copies may be obtained from RTCM, 
). 
The GPS 16x series products interface protocol, in addition to transmitting navigation information as defined by 
NMEA 0183, transmits additional information using the convention of Garmin proprietary sentences. 
Binary information can alternatively be output on the COM1 port; see 
 
for details. 
The following sections describe the NMEA 0183 data format of each sentence transmitted and received by the GPS 
16x series products. The baud rate selection, one-pulse-per-second output interfaces and RTCM differential GPS 
input are also described. 
4.1  RECEIVED NMEA 0183 SENTENCES 
The following paragraphs define the sentences that can be received on the GPS sensors’ COM1 port. Null fields in 
the configuration sentence indicate no change in the particular configuration parameter. All sentences received by 
the GPS sensor must be terminated with <CR><LF>, the ASCII characters for carriage return (0D hexadecimal) and 
line feed (0A hexadecimal). The checksum *hh is used for parity checking data and is not required, but is 
recommended for use in environments containing high electromagnetic noise. It is generally not required in normal 
PC environments. When used, the parity bytes (hh) are the ASCII representation of the exclusive-or (XOR) sum of 
all the characters between the “$” and “*” characters, non-inclusive. The hex representation must be a capital letter, 
such as 3D instead of 3d. Sentences may be truncated by <CR><LF> after any data field and valid fields up to that 
point will be acted on by the sensor. 
4.1.1  Almanac Information (ALM) 
The $GPALM sentence can be used to initialize the GPS sensor’s stored almanac information in the unlikely event 
of non-volatile memory loss or after storing longer than six months without tracking GPS satellites. 
$GPALM,<1>,<2>,<3>,<4>,<5>,<6>,<7>,<8>,<9>,<10>,<11>,<12>,<13>,<14>,<15>*hh<CR><LF> 
<1> 
Total number of ALM sentences to be transmitted by the GPS sensor during almanac download. This 
field can be null or any number when sending almanac to the GPS sensor. 
<2> 
Number of current ALM sentence. This field can be null or any number when sending almanac to the 
GPS sensor. 
<3> 
Satellite PRN number, 01 to 32 
<4> GPS 
week 
number 
<5> 
SV health, bits 17-24 of each almanac page 
<6> Eccentricity 
<7> 
Almanac reference time 
<8> Inclination 
angle 
<9> 
Rate of right ascension 
<10> 
Root of semi major axis 
<11> 
Omega, argument of perigee 
<12> 
Longitude of ascension node 
<13> Mean 
anomaly 
<14> af0 
clock 
parameter 
<15> af1 
clock 
parameter