NMEA over TCP/IP

Our boat systems use the old NMEA0183 standard for communications. Regardless, there are ways to tie these old communication systems into modern ones. Here's a cool way that I found to relay onboard navigation info to my IPod touch.

Rose Point Coastal Explorer (CE) software has the ability to serve as an NMEA server. You simply enable NMEA server in the CE configuration. If you have a wired or wireless network onboard (easy to do with a Linksys or Netgear 12v router), you simply point other devices that are networked, to the IP address of the NMEA server, and you can get any information that the NMEA server has.  I wanted to be able to test cheaply, so I found this app called NMEA remote.

I enabled NMEA server in CE, then configured NMEA remote to get data from the NMEA IP address.
Now my IPod touch, or IPhone, or IPad will display position, course, speed, depth etc.