First GPS logging with new phone - NMEA sentence

Been trying out some GPS logging software with the new HTC p3600i PDA-Phone. This unit has a built-in GPS, but the supplied software was way over-kill for me. All colour maps and turn-here voice directions. I just want a simple application to tell me where I am as a few lines of text, plus log it for later use. Specifically to convert to Google Earth format and look at my bush-walk in 3D.

The software I found produces the generic NMEA format messages. Here’s a sample:

$GPRMC,001902.0,A,3751.782669,S,14454.073719,E,1.1,301.2,160508,,,A*7C

A number of sites have this format explained, but I can pretty much decode some elements right off the bat:

001902 is the time in UTC/GMT 00:19:02 with 160508 being the UTC/GMT date (hence Melbourne time/date of +10 hours so 10:19am and 2 seconds on 16th May 2008) Correct!

3751.782..,S etc jumps out at me as very much Melbourne’s (well, Williamstown’s) Latitude and S = South. It’s actually 37 degrees etc, so this must be a decimal version

14454…E is our Longitude, East.

Easy!