How do I discern Maidenhead Locator from GPS lat long info.

[tasmod]

That was it Darrel. I had aliased the wrong variables to save renaming.

Gives correct code at 'back yard' 90% of time. Why 90% ? Well, it faces North and the number of satellites it will lock to for a precise fix varies quite a lot. This is due to antenna position and satellite positions. If I lift antenna slightly, it will improve.
The gps gives a slightly changing fix as it recalculates. According to manual it outputs a 'Fix' in sentence when it has aquired 4 satellites

At the South facing 'front yard' it is 100%, as it will fix 12 satellites, the limit of this gps module.


I'm going to try inputting an initialisation string at start up. This will turn off all sentences except the RMC sentence. This should stop the occasional random catchup 'seconds' jump as another sentence is output. There are four other defaults, GGA , GSV , GSA and ZCH. The latter is the unit channel status.
It appears that they are output randomly according to PC gps serial monitoring program, whilst RMC is per second.