Serial Receive only zeroes

In simulink, I use the serial receive block to receive data from my NMEA compass, which is sending me heading information through com1 in the following format:

$HCHDG,hhh.h.,,,,<CR><LF>

where hhh.h is the heading of the compass in degrees (eg 180.0 degrees means south).

When I open the port in Matlab and use the fscanf command, I receive strings in the format

$HCHDG,49.0,,,,

So thats working. My problem is I need the 49.0 in simulink as a number.

I tried using the serial receive block, but this only yields me zeroes, and sometimes a 44 (I guess it's the ascii code for the ',').

I use $HCHDG for heading and cr/lf as terminator, can anybody help to get the heading number?

[Walter Roberson]

Replied in your duplicate question http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/18364-reading-numeric-value-from-com-port