[OT] Spirit Sends Debug Information to Earth

dahamsta

Good to see you can get better connectivity on Mars than you can in rural Ireland...

Spirit Sends Debug Information to Earth
Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday January 24, @10:46AM
from the randy-california-not-available-for-comment dept.
gfilion writes "NASA has released a press release that says: 'Shortly before noon, controllers were surprised to receive a relay of data from Spirit via the Mars Odyssey orbiter. Spirit sent 73 megabits at a rate of 128 kilobits per second.'" They've been having communications troubles with Spirit since Wednesday, so it's good to hear from it again, even if the data is just filler.[...]

Ryaner

Yeah I thinking if they can get a 128downlink from mars then the gov should listen up. Some people over here are struggling to get a stable connection at 28k. What a joke

SkepticOne

I've heard the pings aren't very good though.

Ryaner

I'm sure pings of 10000 wouldnt be too much of a problem for some people who are getting 1k downloads. Which is more useable, a 128 connection with 10000pings or a 1.5k connection. Hard choice :eek:

DeVore

Lag kill, biatch!

DeV.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Ryaner
I'm sure pings of 10000 wouldnt be too much of a problem for some people who are getting 1k downloads. Which is more useable, a 128 connection with 10000pings or a 1.5k connection. Hard choice :eek:

Ping would be around 57600000 at the moment I think. Click on a link on the web and get an answer 15 minutes later.

My current line only delivers about 1k under dial up. OK for email but nothing else. An Eircom engineer once called out to the house and tried to connect his lap top to the Eircom intranet. He didn't have the patience to wait for the home page to download and left before it loaded claiming that the line was fine.

The same line works fine with DSL funnily enough.

Ryaner

1k connection and your able get DSL? Em I'm sure you'll be one of the many people who's line fails after paying. Unlucky you. How'd you work out the ping thing tho? I'm interested

SkepticOne

I have had DSL for some time and the line is still unusable for analogue modems. Can't send faxes for example, but I'm reluctant to try and get it fixed for fear that Eircom will screw up the DSL connection.

As for the pings from Mars, according to the web, the round trip for signals to and from Mars varies between 8 and 30 minutes. I took a number somewhere in between and worked out the figure in miliseconds.

Ryaner

Well if you have dsl then you got no problem. What speeds you gettin on the BB with the crap line? Your lucky having dsl. I'm trying to and my line has suddenly started failing. Eircom are upgrading the exchange on tue so I'm hoping.

Smart idea on the pings. Never thought about it that way

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Ryaner
What speeds you gettin on the BB with the crap line?

I am getting the advertised 512k speeds. It is not dropping down to 256k or anything. It means that you can sometimes get good DSL even if analogue doesn't work, although there are plenty of problems which would affect both analogue and DSL connections, so there are no guarantees.

As an aside, when I first read the thread I thought it was another typical "dahamsta" type thread, however it does illustrate what can be achieved with wireless connections when wired is not an option.

Ryaner

Whats your average dl speeds on it? The connection speed isnt really an indicator on BB. The wireless solutions that are around are pretty good if you can get them. I wouldnt mind IBB, 30euro a month and 512 up/down. Pity all those companys are on the south side or up the north of ireland really.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Ryaner
Whats your average dl speeds on it? The connection speed isnt really an indicator on BB.

If it is a fast remote server then I get 50 to 55 kB/sec. This is fairly consistant.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Ryaner
Pity all those companys are on the south side or up the north of ireland really.

The last time I checked Blanchardstown, Mountjoy Square and Glasnevin were all on the Northside. And according to their website, two of the three "Areas coming soon" are also on the Northside.

Capt'n Midnight

128Kb from mars ???

http://www.space.eads.net/web1/news/news_content.asp?contenu_id=1680
MARS EXPRESS
Communication:
Two-way communication in S and X-band
Daily data transfer rate: 500 to 4300 Mbits

http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM8ZB474OD_index_0.html
They don't seem to have a cap either - the first pictures released came out of over 100GB of processed data...


[edit]http://www.talla3.com/talla3.nsf/0/41366f730bc088e5c1256bda00581085?OpenDocument
Opps - it's only 230Kbs and only for 6 out of 7.6 hours a day - but they do use data compression.

DMT

In the future there will be people complaining bad subspace pings to their favourite Half-Life 3000 server on Mars, and complaining about earthcom's subspace repeater monopoly on the SolOffline board...

Ryaner

Originally posted by Ripwave
The last time I checked Blanchardstown, Mountjoy Square and Glasnevin were all on the Northside. And according to their website, two of the three "Areas coming soon" are also on the Northside.

yes they are my bad. None of them have made it anywhere near where I am tho (just past the airport) They do mainly stick to south side and areas close to that

Ripwave

Originally posted by Ryaner
They do mainly stick to south side and areas close to that

They all started on 3 Rock. When you have a few nice mountains with radio masts on the Northside, maybe they'll start there instead.

Ryaner

I suppose that's very true. Never exactly thought about it that way.