DP Talker - NMEA 0183 Reader

DP Talker turns an Android phone and a USB-serial adapter into a field tool for
marine electro-technical officers and dynamic positioning technicians.

NOT FOR USE AS A POSITION REFERENCE INPUT ON A VESSEL IN DP OPERATIONS.


READ WHAT IS ACTUALLY ON THE WIRE

Frame and decode a live NMEA 0183 stream, and see how much of it the app
genuinely understood rather than a claim that everything is fine. Decoded value
cards for heading, wind, position, VRU motion, depth, log speed and laser or
radar range and bearing - each with its measured rate, and each visibly dead
when the source goes quiet.

Tap any raw line for a full field breakdown: every field named, its raw wire
text beside the reading, the checksum verified, and guidance on what it means on
a DP - which accuracy figures are real measurements and which are constants the
sensor always sends, whether a bearing is relative to the bow or to north, and
which roll and pitch belong to the sensor head rather than to the vessel.

A sentence the tables do not know still opens, with its fields numbered. A
sentence whose checksum failed still opens, marked unverified - because the
corrupt line is usually the one you are chasing.


SIMULATE A SENSOR

Gyro, wind, DGNSS, VRU/MRU including Kongsberg PSXN,23, and the position
reference telegram family - Fanbeam/MDL, CyScan, Artemis, ASCII17, and the
RadaScan, RADius and SpotTrack formats. Drive them live while transmitting: slew
a heading at a realistic rate, dial in a sea state, swing a bearing. The exact
frames are previewed, with checksums, before a single byte goes out.

Or type your own telegram. A template editor with a live preview renders
whatever your interface manual describes, so the sentence this app has never
heard of is one you can still send today.


RECORD, REPLAY, RE-TRANSMIT

Capture a session to a raw .nmea file - the bytes and nothing added, so it opens
in any NMEA tool and can be mailed to the sensor OEM as evidence. Replay it to
the screen, or re-transmit it out the serial port at its original timing, which
turns any recording into a test source. Checksum failures are marked on the
scrubber so you can jump straight to the fault.


A TELEGRAM REFERENCE THAT WORKS OFFLINE

Paste any sentence - from an email, a laptop, or an interface manual - and
decode it with no adapter attached. Or browse every telegram the app knows, each
with a worked example rendered from its own definition.


WHAT IT IS NOT

A field and bench tool, written and maintained by one working ETO. It is not
calibrated test equipment, not type-approved, not a position reference system,
and not endorsed by any manufacturer, operator or class society. What you read
is only as good as the adapter and the cable. Treat it as an indication and
confirm anything that goes into a report with an instrument that carries a
certificate.


NOTHING LEAVES YOUR PHONE

DP Talker declares no internet permission at all. Not "we promise not to" - the
platform will not let it. No telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting, no
account. Recordings and settings stay in the app's private storage until you
share a file yourself.


REQUIREMENTS

Android 8.0 or newer, USB OTG support, and a USB-to-serial adapter. FTDI,
Prolific, CP210x, CH340 and CDC-ACM are supported. No adapter to hand? Demo mode
runs every screen against a synthesized stream.