The Delorme Earthmate is configured such that it does not transmit standard NMEA sentances. It can only be used by Delorme software, or other software products that have cracked their proprietary standard. Maptech's Terrain Navigator has this, but we have not added that feature to our Marine or Handheld products.

There is a company that makes a little adapter that converts Delorme's format into standard NMEA sentances. I forget where I saw it, but it was advertised on the web somewhere. Delorme may know more, but since they only want their GPS units used with their software, Delorme may decline to assist you.

The USB-based Earthmate appears to be configurable to be NMEA or proprietary. However, I don't have any details on how this is done.

Sincerely,

-Ed Lecuyer

Manager, Quality Assurance and Technical Support

A fellow Maptech customer saw this discussion and emailed his thoughts to me directly. (With his permission) I have posted his comments below.

-Ed

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This gadget will translate the Rockwell data stream to NMEA.

http://www.byonics.com/gst-1/index.html

But it probably makes more sense to get a Pocket PC and the sleeve GPS
rather than dinking around with the old Earthmate. Although the Bluetooth
capability of the new Earthmate with Power Pack also has some advantages in
being able to use the receiver with more than one device.