What is a .NMEA0183 file?
An NMEA 0183 file is a text log of GPS sentences - the comma-separated lines a satnav receiver emits, each carrying a fix, time, speed or satellite status.
- Did you know
- Every line starts with a tag like $GPGGA and ends with a checksum, a 1980s marine-electronics standard that still underpins consumer GPS today.
- NMEA 0183 is maintained by the US National Marine Electronics Association, which is why each sentence carries a talker ID such as GP for GPS or GL for GLONASS.
- The data is plain ASCII sent at a default 4800 baud over a simple serial link, with one device talking to many listeners at once.
- What Analyser reads
- Inspect geospatial and GIS files without a map: TopoJSON, OpenStreetMap XML, Esri Shapefile siblings (SHP/SHX/DBF/PRJ/CPG), world files, GML, NMEA GPS logs, IGC flight logs, MapInfo TAB/MIF, GDAL VRT, PMTiles, DTED terrain, Esri ASCII grids and SRTM .hgt - surfacing CRS/EPSG, feature/record counts, bounding boxes and elevation ranges. GRIB/NetCDF/GeoPackage/MBTiles/MrSID/ECW identified.
- Depth of analysis
- .NMEA0183 is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .NMEA0183 file
- Drag a .NMEA0183 file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.