Online Distance/Lag Calculator

[MarkJFine]

There have been numerous discussions talking about lag time in these forums, but never something that allows you to actually figure it out. So I started the process of throwing together a simple javascript-driven page that allows you to calculate the overall signal distance and lag time: Distance and Lag Time Calculator.

Basically you just enter your satellite. either your gateway or beam#, and your location. It's supposed to auto-fill your location if you leave it blank, but it doesn't work just yet... in progress. It's been quickly thrown together so I haven't prettied it up yet. Mostly in the process of getting the guts to work the way it should.

Not sure what the admins think of having something like this available. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the underlying information is out in the open somewhere.

Leave it up? Take it down? Slap me for having too much time on my hands? Other comments?

[Liz]

Woah Mark! This is cool. I sent this over to our engineers for their input.

-Liz

[MarkJFine]

I may work on it some more, like adding drop-downs for the top two lines, and maybe splitting out the gateway and beam instead of using the same input box. I'd really like the location thing to work too.

[C0RR0SIVE]

Hmm, have you thought about trying to pull the BeamID and Satellite ID from the modem it self, then add a field to request "real" latency from a webservice?

Also, mind if I either jack your script and put it on my site, or link to that script from my site?

[MarkJFine]

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@C0RR0SIVE wrote:

Hmm, have you thought about trying to pull the BeamID and Satellite ID from the modem it self, then add a field to request "real" latency from a webservice?

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Thought about it, but it does restrict you to acutally be on the network to do that.

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Also, mind if I either jack your script and put it on my site, or link to that script from my site?

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Either way is fine, but a link would be easier.

Also, just found out that the geocoder that determines your location only works in a secure environment. So the link should be https:// not http://. Then all you need to do is pop in J2 and your beam# and click the Calculate button.

Bear in mind mine was waaaaay off. Said the accuaracy was within 1900m, but it's more like 50 klicks off, if that.

Edit: Now you don't even have to enter J2. It's an option box that defaults to it. I also Bootstrapped it (look and feel) and added my standard header and footer to pretty it up some.

[Liz]

Hi Mark,

No one's objected to you pursuing this project so I don't see why you should stop (unless you want to of course).

-Liz

[MarkJFine]

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@Liz wrote:

No one's objected to you pursuing this project so I don't see why you should stop (unless you want to of course).

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Hooah. Was going to add miles to the kms, but it was mostly there.

Did happen to notice that the new Firefox for iOS (fxios) had a problem with automatically getting the user's geolocation info tho. #fun

[GabeU]

What's interesting is that the the latency calculation is the same for both my actual location and my browser calculated location, which is about 50 miles from here.  It's 50 miles away, but pretty much the same distance from the satellite as my actual location, so it makes sense. 

I expected it to be more off, as my browser generated location isn't usually this close.  

[MarkJFine]

50 out of 95,000 or so isn't going to be a big change... 0.05%

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[GabeU]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

50 out of 95,000 or so isn't going to be a big change... 0.05%

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Thought it's 50 miles away from me, it's just slightly south of due east, so it's actually pretty much on the same distance arc from the satellite.  I'd be surprised if the actual difference in distance to the satellite was more than five miles.

[MarkJFine]

Changed both distances to output both km and miles.

[GabeU]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

Changed both distances to output both km and miles.

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Heck, I didn't even see that.  I should have paid better attention.

The distance difference is two miles.  😛

[MarkJFine]

I just updated the page and burped the CDN cache

[MarkJFine]

Since this is HN-specific (has J1, J2, and all available gateway locations / elevations), would there be a problem if I added HughesNet to the title? Likewise, would adding the logo be pushing it or would the legal eagles have an issue?

[Liz]

Having HughesNet in the title would make sense since, as you said, this tool is specific to HN, but I'd avoid using any logo, to be safe.

-Liz

[maratsade]

I'd suggest using the (R) next to the name too, as it's a registered trademark, and I'd personally add a disclaimer. 

[Liz]

Excellent idea, maratsade! 

-Liz

[MarkJFine]

Following up on this...
1. Moved my site to Wordpress. Was lot of fun trying to insert inline javascript using their editor without it making a mess of it. Not to mention getting a working Calculate button.
2. Added HughesNet to the title.
3. Added a disclaimer to the bottom.

4. Changed the link in the initial post to point to the revised url for HughesNet® Gateway Distance Calculator.

[Liz]

Nice! Looks good, Mark!

-Liz

[MarkJFine]

was messing with the htaccess file trying to get redirects for older .html paths, so people trying the link may have gotten errors. should be ok now.

[maratsade]

Looks good to me! How does one find one's geographic location in terms of latitude/longitude?