Provided by:
gpsd-clients_2.39-5_i386 
NAME
gpsdecode - decode RTCM or AIVDM streams into a readable format
SYNOPSIS
gpsdecode [-d] [-e] [-l] [-u] [-D debuglevel] [-V]
DESCRIPTION
This tool is a decoder/encoder for various binary packet formats
associated with GPS and differential-correction services. It produces a
text dump on standard output from binary on standard input, or binary
packets on standard output from text on standard input, and aims to be
100% information-preserving in both directions. As well as data, the
decoder also prints decoder status messages to standard error as
necessary.
Two of the supported formats are RTCM 2 and 3, a pair of obscure and
complicated serial protocol used for broadcasting pseudorange
corrections from differential-GPS reference stations. You can use this
mode of the tool with nc(1) to examine RTCM feeds from DGPSIP servers
or Ntrip broadcasters. The decoder dump format for RTCM2 is described
in rtcm(5); these lines go to standard output.
Another supported format is AIVDM. This is the sentence format used by
the marine Automatic Identification System. This can be decoded, but
not yet encoded.
The dump lines are values of AIS payload fields, comma-separated, in
the order that they occur in the payload, spare and assigned-mode bits
omitted. Spans of fields expressing a date are emitted as an ISO8601
timestamp (look for colons and the trailing Z indicating Zulu/UTC
time), and the 19-bit group of TDMA status fields found at the end of
message types 1-4 are are dumped as a single unsigned integer in hex.
(Unused regional-authority fields are also dumped in hex.)
By default, certain scaling and conversion operations are performed for
the output. Latitudes and longitudes are scaled to decimal degrees
rather than the native AIS unit of 1/10000th of a minute of arc. Ship
(but not air) speeds are scaled to knots rather than tenth-of-knot
unit. Navigation status and positioning-system type are dumped as text
strings rather than IAS numeric codes. Rate of turn may appear as "nan"
if is unavailable, of as one of the strings "fastright" or "fastleft"
if it is out of the IAS encoding range; otherwise it is quadratically
mapped back to the turn sensor number in degrees per minute. Vessel
draughts are converted to decimal meters rather than native AIS
decimeters.
OPTIONS
The -d option tells the program to decode packets presented on standard
input to a text dump on standard output. This is the default behavior.
RTCM2 will be dumped in the format of rtcm-104(5) on standard output.
The -e option option tells the program to encode a text dump in the
format of rtcm-104(5) to standard output. Encoding is supported only
RTCM2, not for RTCM3.
The -u suppresses scaling to float quantities and text expansion of
numeric codes. A dump with this option is lossless.
The -l inserts a mnemonic label, followed by an equal sign, before each
field in each dump line.
The -V option directs the program to emit its version number, then
exit.
The -D option sets a debug verbosity level. It is mainly of interest to
developers.
APPLICABLE STANDARDS
The applicable standard for V2 is RTCM Recommended Standards for
Differential NAVSTAR GPS Service RTCM Paper 194-93/SC 104-STD.
Note that gpsdecode presently recognizes only the 2.1 level of RTCM;
the protocol was revised up to a version 2.3 including additional
messages relating to GLONASS and real-time kinematics before being
deprecated in favor of V3. It is now obsolete.
The applicable standard for V3 is RTCM Standard 10403.1 for
Differential GNSS Services - Version 3 RTCM Paper 177-2006-SC104-STD.
Ordering instructions for the RTCM standards are accessible from the
website of the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services[1]
under "Publications".
The applicable standard for AIVDM is ITU-R M.1371: ITU Recommendation
on the Technical Characteristics for a Universal Shipborne Automatic
Identification System (AIS) using Time Division Multiple Access in the
Maritime Mobile Band,. A more accessible description can be found onn
the references page of the GPSD project website.
BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
AIDVM decoding presently only parses fields for the common sentence
types 1-5, the rarely encountered type 9, and the uncommon type 18.
AIVDM encoding is not yet supported.
RTCM3 decoding is buggy and incomplete.
RTCM2 represents floating-point quantities as an integer multiple of a
fixed scale factor. Editing an RTCM2 dump can produce numbers that are
not an integer multiple of the scale factor for their field. If you do
this, the value actually packed into binary RTCM2 will be rounded down
to the nearest scale unit, and dumping will show slightly different
numbers than those you entered. This bug could be fixed by supporting
the -u option to suppress scaling, but the protocol is noew obsolete.
The RTCM2 decoder logic is sufficiently convoluted to confuse some
compiler optimizers, notably in GCC 3.x at -O2, into generating bad
code.
SEE ALSO
gpsd(8), cgps(1), libgps(3), libgpsd(3), gpsprof(1), gpsfake(1),
rtcm-104(5).
AUTHOR
Eric S. Raymond esr@thyrsus.com. This is a somewhat hacked version of
an RTCM decoder originally written by Wolfgang Rupprecht. There is a
project page for gpsd here[2].
NOTES
1. Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services
http://www.rtcm.org/
2. here
http://gpsd.berlios.de/
[FIXME: source] 08/15/2009 GPSDECODE(1)