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Wireless Link Calculator On A Cell Phone

Posted by simoniker on from the dial-up-success dept.

Casey Halverson writes "Ever been out in the field and wanted to make a quick wireless link calculation, but didn't have a computer or internet connection handy? Or maybe you're just too lazy to turn the thing on? Well now you can, from your xHTML capable cell phone. PocketSOM can calculate a wireless link, telling you your signal strength, whether or not it meets local FCC/IC/EU regulations, and even an expert analysis system that will tell you how you can improve your wireless link and what kind of performance you can expect. People like us (the SeattleWireless admins) are using it right now - here's a screenshot."

85 comments

  1. Ah, cellphone feature creep. by Valar · · Score: 2, Funny

    What's my link now? *walk a little* What's my link now? *walk a little* What's...

    --

    ====
    Crudely Drawn Games
    1. Re:Ah, cellphone feature creep. by nordicfrost · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just to clear things up: It is a calculator, not a measuring device.

    2. Re:Ah, cellphone feature creep. by chrispy666 · · Score: 2, Funny

      What's my link now? *walk a little* What's my link now? *walk a little* What's...

      I think you forgot to add at the end :
      ..."kaboom"
      (sound of the guy falling into a huge hole)

      (damn I think I need to stop watching cartoons...)

      --
      Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
    3. Re:Ah, cellphone feature creep. by dollar70 · · Score: 1, Funny
      What's my link now? *walk a little* What's my link now? *walk a little* What's...

      Can you afford me now?.... Too bad! *walk a little* can you afford me now?.... Too bad! Etc...

      Not mine, sorry... Just couldn't resist.

  2. How long until this is pervasive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    So

    One more story (of many) on a device that can do anothers job, all through overlapping technology. How long until we just have one device that can do everything? a device the size of a cellphone thats a PDA, with a roll-out screen and keyboard the size of a normal laptop, running at 2GHz+ type speeds, full colour, decent resolution, weighs as much as an iPod, plays MP3s and burns/writes to the common media of the day, and will take a photo or movie of you while it does so.

    This whole 'convergence' thing seems to be just taking one or two traditional devices and merging them, I want to see EVERYTHING in one device.

    1. Re:How long until this is pervasive by Mr.+Self+estruct · · Score: 0

      You forgot the fax/printer combo, speakers and juice dispenser.

    2. Re:How long until this is pervasive by Fishead · · Score: 0

      Can we call it a tri-quarter?

    3. Re:How long until this is pervasive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...the floor wax and dessert topping.

  3. Why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is pointless Any good engineer can do it with a slide rule!

    1. Re:Why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol.

      Truer word were never spoken. In fact, I did that exact thing last week, and I'm only 24.

      Don't knock the slide ruler - the batteries never go dead. (I still prefer a calculator btw)

    2. Re:Why by Surak · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hard core networking engineers don't NEED wireless LANs. Hardcore networking engineers use smoke signals!

      --
      My journal has hot /. gossip.
    3. Re:Why by EatHam · · Score: 1

      Hardcore engineers have a webcam - stand up for "1", lay down for "0".

  4. Hmmm... by caitsith01 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Ever been out in the field and wanted to make a quick wireless link calculation, but didn't have a computer or internet connection handy?"

    Yes, I have that problem all the time! Why should an average Joe like me struggle with complex trigonometry when this handy little device let's me do wireless link calculations in the field like a pro? No more time consuming manual wireless link calculations for me. Are you still doing wireless link calculations with a fiddly old wireless link calculation slide rule? Throw it in the garbage! You don't need it anymore thanks to this handy gizmo. Don't be a laughing stock because you can't do quick wireless link calculations in the field... act now!

    By the way, what's a wireless link calculation? (Don't you love it when an article assumes you know exactly what it's talking about?)

    --
    Read Pynchon.
    1. Re:Hmmm... by iworm · · Score: 4, Funny

      Good god man, don't know what a wireless link calculation is? It a calculation of the, er, link's, um, wirelessabilityness coefficient thingy wotsit.

  5. Well, no... by jazir1979 · · Score: 2, Funny

    ..I can't say that I have ever wanted to do that.

    --
    What's your GCNSEQNO?
  6. More apps like this! by nordicfrost · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WAP / XHTML applications like this can be a lifesaver. Why don't we spend more time deveoping these and less time porting inane games to our phones? (Because games create money)

    1. Re:More apps like this! by llauren · · Score: 1

      But what is the point of such an application if you cannot get the values to input? Or do they mean that any Capable Geek should know that?

      There is a wonderful little program, rather misleadingly named MiniGPS, which can tell you the Area ID, Cell ID and signal strength, measured in dBm, for any Series60 gsm phone (like my Nokia 3650 :). What makes this program Truly Nifty is that it can switch my profile to "not-at-work" when i am at home, and "at-work" when i'm there. Good stuff. All i now need to do is register the program... or just code my own ;)

      • ~llaurén
    2. Re:More apps like this! by Microlith · · Score: 1

      I modified one of the headline grabbers written in PHP on the slashdot faq page (ok, I rewrote the thing by hand to make it use mysql), and redid the output so it'd look decent on a cellphone.

      Only problem is the comment itself isn't in the XML (hint hint!), so it's mostly useless. I even made it work with slashdot.jp, but I can't figure out how to make it convert from EUC to SJIS and JIS (some phones use JIS, some SJIS, none EUC).

      Think, a bit more and one could totally geek out by reading and posting to slashdot from their cellphone!

      From Japan!

      In Akihabara!

      * microlith goes and kills himself now

      (anyone with hints on the previously mentioned issues, do post a reply)

    3. Re:More apps like this! by awx · · Score: 1

      becausse WAP applications are a pain-in-the-butt to write?

      --
      Feel that power? That's mah MOUSING FINGER
    4. Re:More apps like this! by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      There would be more point in making these in j2me, so that you don't need connectivity to use it. Besides, most wap gateways can convert html to xhtml within some limits. The built in browsers tend to suck, like in _this_ 3650, luckily there's alternatives

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    5. Re:More apps like this! by mgs1000 · · Score: 1

      If you have a Nokia phone, you don't need this app to find out that information. Just do an internet search and find out how to enable the "field test" menu on the phone. The info in it may be a little crpytic, but it's all in there.

    6. Re:More apps like this! by GlassHeart · · Score: 1
      becausse WAP applications are a pain-in-the-butt to write?

      Assembly language programs were royal pains to write, yet there were plenty of them. Whether or not an application gets written or not doesn't really have that much to do with the underlying technology. The question is whether the demand is there.

      Secondly, most new browser phones support at least most of HTML. Some even support JavaScript. A content developer doesn't really have to deal with WML and WAP anymore.

    7. Re:More apps like this! by Penguin2212 · · Score: 1

      They put games into phones because it's a distraction for every idiot 14 year old kid who buys a phone and pays some ridiculously high prepay rate for phone minutes.

      --

      --
      Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
  7. ho hum... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Useful but hardly revolutionary. At the Cellular company where I work we've written a Java MIDP app linked into our RF planning tool and BTS database, delivering mini coverage plots for submitted locations.

  8. incredible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny


    who needs mp3 players and video messaging when there are applications like this to take advantage of cutting edge cellphone technology, iam sure all the professional engineers will junk their 20,000$ test equipment and convert by the end of the day

    thank goodness this exists

  9. Screenshot by waynemcdougall · · Score: 3, Funny
    Ahh yes, a screenshot with the infinite variety and subtle shades of colour, best captured as a JPG image for smoothing out that overly-crisp text.

    Make sure you keep the image quality high enough to capture every nuance of the subtle faux wood-grain background (and by background I mean 68.3% of the image), not forgetting the coffee cup stain.

    Be sure to include the whole of the phone including every dialing digit, because that gives context to the screenshot.

    Well done. You passed the 0.5 Mb threshold, but still shy of the 0.6 standard. Try a brightly coloured background (a stained tartan kilt plus sporan should do) next time. Remember you want to get to at least 1.5 Mb so it won't fit on a floppy.

    --
    Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
    1. Re:Screenshot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's only one reason for an unnecessarily big file: stenography. This image probably contains Bin Laden's commands or something. Wireless is for terrorists. Anonymous connections, evading the RIAA, etc. This is just further proof.

    2. Re:Screenshot by aziraphale · · Score: 4, Funny

      stenography? You think Bin Laden is hiding orders for terror cells in the shorthand recordings of court proceedings?

      Or perhaps you mean steganography - the science of hiding dinosaurs in pictures. Or something.

    3. Re:Screenshot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey, its seattle!

  10. Uhm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful


    it doesnt even validate

    you do know about doctypes, character encodings and how xhtml and html parsers work right ?

    without a doctype using or even calling it xhtml is worthless and the parser will use plain old html quirks mode (aka html 3), good effort but no cigar, you could of also scripted this in WMLS then the client would not need to post forms and would be able to update the display in realtime, the user could even use it offline then and store the WML locally.

    and you call yourself a nerd ?

    1. Re:Uhm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you insane? For offline usage, all the precious intellectual property would have to be inside the downloadable file.

    2. Re:Uhm by dfj225 · · Score: 1

      Thats ok, neither does slashdot. You can try to just link to /. from that site but for some reason it is 403 forbidden, so I just copied their html and ran the test on the file hosted on my own server. Turns out that it was not valid HTML 3.2 and had 155 errors. Try it for yourself...

      --
      SIGFAULT
  11. You know it's time to get a new cellphone when ... by duffhuff · · Score: 1

    The battery on your existing cellphone is significantly *larger* then entire cellphones today!

    xHTML? Wha? Back when I got my phone, digital was still a pretty hot new thing, and analog / digital dual mode was sweet. Games? E-Mail? Never heard of them!

    I feel like that guy on That 80's Show (short lived, I never watched it) who's seen talking on a "mobile" phone in a club. That thing he was using was the size of a loaf of bread.

  12. Hmm, let me think... by Powercntrl · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Ever been out in the field and wanted to make a quick wireless link calculation..."

    Umm, no. I have; however, been out in the field and wished my cell phone would get a goddamn signal.

    --

    ---
    DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
    1. Re:Hmm, let me think... by JUSTONEMORELATTE · · Score: 1

      "Ever been out in the field and wanted to make a quick wireless link calculation..."
      Umm, no. I have; however, been out in the field and wished my cell phone would get a goddamn signal.
      Which is why I thought this would make a much better PalmOS app than a DHTXML-whatever applet.
      But maybe it's just me

      --

  13. Errr.... by Keyser_Lives · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Ever been out in the field and wanted to make a quick wireless link calculation"

    Nope. Next question.

  14. Now what would be really neat... by femto · · Score: 2, Interesting
    is if they could figure out how to get the phone to actually measure field strength! (and compare the measurements with calculations).

    It can be done using only software modifications! It's how some network operators measure their networks. I've seen a picture of around half a dozen mobile phones (each a different make) attached to a piece of wood, with cables plugged into the standard connector on the bottom, running back to a black box (think it was actually a laptop). The system then logs field strength for each phone as a function of position (GPS is also attached).

    1. Re:Now what would be really neat... by psyconaut · · Score: 1

      Your concept is flawed. Any 'wireless link' that was running at a frequency that your phone could measure would, by very virtue, be illegal!

      (Phones don't have software controlled radios -- yet).

      -psy

    2. Re:Now what would be really neat... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's called Netmonitor. Trium GSM phones just need *4329 and they display signal strength in dBm, channel numbers etc. - see
      http://members.chello.at/johnny/gsm/display1/ mt30s ecret.htm

  15. J2ME? by arcain · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wouldn't this be better suited as a Java MIDlet? What if you have no signal? What if the server is down? No additional bandwidth charges (for those with carriers that do). And probably quicker response times. And no worries of the site being slashdotted.

    Document the calculations and I'll make a MIDlet in a couple of hours. I can find basic equations, but they take into account additional variables (cable loss, receiver related variables) which you don't use.

    1. Re:J2ME? by glesga_kiss · · Score: 1
      Forget Java, you could do this in JavaScript in a plain normal HTML file. Who wrote this in PHP? Are they mad? Can any phones handle PHP natively? Nope. Ever thought of coding for your target platform? If you have HTML, you have JavaScript. It's a perfectly fine language for simple applications like this.

      I've got an HTML set of webpages on my phone already, where you can do ASCII lookups, Trig functions, unit conversions, prime number checks blah blah blah. This is hardly revolutionary, I've had this for 6 months. Never actually used it though!

    2. Re:J2ME? by krisp · · Score: 1
      Who wrote this in PHP? Are they mad? Can any phones handle PHP natively? Nope.


      That's assuming the page is being hosted on the telephone. PHP is compiled server side -- the phone only sees a simple HTML/xHTML file with the proper values in it.

      Next question
    3. Re:J2ME? by glesga_kiss · · Score: 1
      PHP is compiled server side -- the phone only sees a simple HTML/xHTML file with the proper values in it.

      Exactly. That's my point. It's the wrong tool for the job.

    4. Re:J2ME? by jrumney · · Score: 1
      If you have HTML, you have JavaScript.

      What mobile phone supports Javascript? Even most PDA webbrowsers don't.

    5. Re:J2ME? by MikeBabcock · · Score: 1

      What on earth are you trying to say?

      You seem to be either missing the point completely or not communicating your thoughts very well.

      That is to say, PHP is a fine tool for the job; it is server-side, like most scripting technologies, and takes inputs from the phone and then returns the answers.

      If, like a previous user, you want to be able to run this without browsing a web page (which is completely different from the intent of this applet) then you'll want JAVA hosted on your phone. JavaScript probably won't help you since it isn't supported and JAVA isn't even supported on many phones yet.

      At least with the PHP version, the calculations are done no matter what level of HTML/Java/JavaScript support you have on your phone. Your only dependance is on having a link at all.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    6. Re:J2ME? by glesga_kiss · · Score: 1
      I'm trying to say (like the other poster) that server-side is not the way to do this. Sure, I take your point on it being less dependant on the browsers capability, but it's HTML so JavaScript support is a part of the standard. If the phone can render HTML, it should be able to handle JavaScript. Otherwise, hardly any websites would render correctly.

      On these devices, you pay by the byte. I have a GPRS phone myself that has full web browser capability, including JavaScript. No Java though, but you can write your own apps in C++ if you want.

      If this is something you indend to use often, then installing on the phone is a far better way to go. GPRS, at it's rarely met max speed, is comparable to a 56k modem, so storing it on the phone is also a lot faster. Although they say these phones have "always on" connections, that's not true and it takes 5 secs just to get a connection, then 2 secs for DNS to resolve, then another 5-10 secs to load the page.

    7. Re:J2ME? by glesga_kiss · · Score: 1
      What mobile phone supports Javascript? Even most PDA webbrowsers don't.

      Any that have Opera or PocketIE do, we aren't in Nokia land here. ;-) Which is a surprising amount of the new smartphones coming on to the market. Highly recommended by the way. They don't claim "JavaScript support" on the box or in the literature, but if your HTML browser conforms to the standards, you should have JavaScript. It's an intregal part of the WWW.

    8. Re:J2ME? by cwebster · · Score: 1

      but you still need connectivity for that to work. with html/js, you could host it on the phone and not eat up bandwidth uselessly.

      ~~

    9. Re:J2ME? by arcain · · Score: 1

      Of the millions of phones shipped, only a small percentage of them support full HTML and Javascript (PocketPC-based ones, Palm-based, and Symbian-based).

      From http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php /1598081:
      An estimated 50 million Java handsets are currently on the market and shipments of Java handsets exceeded PDA shipments in 2002, said Gold, adding that one out of ever ten cell phones in the world will be Java phones by the end of the year.

      "The answer is increasingly just Java," Gold told internetnews.com.

      "By end 2003, the size of the market that one can address with Java will still be larger than that of all PDAs and smartphones (such as Nokia Communicator and the Ericsson or Samsung equivalents) together, even if PDAs and smartphones grow by 100 percent in units this year (probably an unrealistically high assumption)," said Gold.

      But I agree, a utility like this is best suited for the client.

    10. Re:J2ME? by jrumney · · Score: 1

      Nothing in the HTML standards mandates Javascript support. The two are orthoganal, and there are many HTML browsers that do not support Javascript especially in the PDA and mobile phone world.

    11. Re:J2ME? by glesga_kiss · · Score: 1
      Sure, however millions of these phones are braindead and can't access the internet in any way, or install new applications, so we can discount them straight away. ;-) When you go down to the region where phones can access tge net and handle proper HTML, then JavaScript support is on the majority of them. As the author of this app has used HTML, this restriction has already been made.

      If you want to maximise compatability with the phones in use today, WAP would be the way to go. However, as someone with a phone that does HTML, I don't even know how to use WAP. HTML is far better, WAP pr0n doesn't really cut it!

    12. Re:J2ME? by esquimaux · · Score: 1

      Millions of phones can access the web: most of them can do WAP/WML or its forebears, some of them WMLScript, some of them HTML 4 or some subset, but only tiny minority that can run any Javascript. Vastly more phones can run Java (J2ME) MIDlets than can execute Javascript. And, no, most websites don't perform terribly well on a phone.

      Furthermore, there's nothing in the HTML standards that requires Javascript. I'm not sure where you got that idea.

      It's great that your phone can do Javascript. You can't really reason about the rest of reality from that fluke.

  16. Re:This has to be said... by mirko · · Score: 1

    Is it an allusion to Richard Stallman's speech ?

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
  17. here's some link budget calculators by funkmastermike · · Score: 1

    used to calculate the gains and losses on a link...
    ya know.. sometimes you just need to know... BOOKMARK THEM!

    http://www.satsig.net/linkbugt.htm
    http://classwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/class/pages/FLBCalc. htm
    http://nmsp.gsfc.nasa.gov/tdrss/calc.html

  18. Woohoo! by Oscar_Wilde · · Score: 1, Funny

    Now, where is the metric version?

  19. This would be great if... by Op7imus_Prim3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    it measured the actaul field strength of your wireless link. If you are doing field meseaurements you would have your laptop or wireless equipped PDA with you anyway. I really cannot see the fscking point or carrying around another bit of gear that does less than all the other bits of gear I carry around.

    --
    EGG, the Electronic Gamers Guild
  20. Wireless Link Calculator by i_really_dont_care · · Score: 5, Funny

    Welcome to Wireless Link Calculator.
    This is free software distributed under the GPL. See COPYING for details.

    Enter first number of wireless links
    > 5

    Enter second number of wireless links
    > 3

    Together that amounts to 8 wireless links.
    Have a nice day.

  21. Motif by uberchicken · · Score: 1

    Mmmmmmm...lovely motif widgets.

  22. Uh oh, by crayiii · · Score: 1

    I need to do my wireless calculation but I'm out in this field and have no signal for my cell phone!

    1. Re:Uh oh, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's easy, your signal strength is 0.

  23. XHTML, huh... by Phantasmo · · Score: 1

    No DTD, and the server is identifying it as text/html.

    If you're not going to go all the way and identify it as application/xhtml+xml then you may as well write HTML 4.01 Strict. If you don't, the UA will take your XHTML (XML-style) document, run it through its HTML (SGML-style) parser and throw a bunch of errors on things like .

    Why cross your fingers and hope that the UA can deal with those errors gracefully?

    Don't get me wrong, XHTML 1.1 kicks ass (and I can't wait for 2.0), but "tell it like it is" with MIME types.

    --

    The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
  24. Broad Ranges? by eskimoboy · · Score: 1

    If you notice in the image, the program is set to 2.4GHz (the frequency at which 802.11b wireless operates), but it looks like the frequency is changeable. What I find interesting is that it picks up the frequency on 2400MHz, when in fact, channel 1 of the 802.11b starts at 2412MHz (here for more info) and channels above that step up in frequency. Scenario: my neighbor John has a linksys wireless router set to its default channel 6, and I set my wireless device(s) to channel 11. Since this cellphone detects (at least, assuming they were using channel 1) within 12 MHz, what are the chances I can test just the strength of MY network? It seems as though the idea is good, but in an inner-city area, where wireless networks are more popular, it looks like it would be harder to really test your own network.

  25. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Values in dB?"

    What, then, does 2400 MHz dB mean?

    Or 1 mile(s) dB?

    Oh, I get it... they were referring to Tx Power and Gain.

    Silly me.

  26. This program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is downright awful and inaccurate. Who slid this on slashdot?

    1. Re:This program by Profane+Motherfucker · · Score: 1

      "Slid this on.."? You must be new.

  27. in other news... by esquimaux · · Score: 1

    Some other guy has written some other tiny little app with limited appeal. How is this news? He uses XHTML?

    Say, I have a program that calculates the specific density and body fat percentage of my cats...and you can access it via the WORLD WIDE WEB! Oh, yeah, and everything is first output into XML 1.1, then transformed by an XSLT stylesheet into XSL:FO, which is then rendered into PDF with embedded Javascript, which I then transform into WBMP for output to my cell phone through WAP Push. Every five minutes I also receive updates via animated MMS messages, and my car's 802.11 telematic system has a holographic heads-up display of the instantaneous fat accumulation rate of each feline, broken down topologically. When it drops below a threshold determined by an expert system, which is accessed via the venerable ELIZA protocol, a fiber optic quantum-encrypted transmitter activates a remote twinkie feeder device to compensate. Um...I think the twinkies might contain carbon nanotubes or buckyball-nougat or something.

    I'm porting the whole system to be C# running on Mono-current running on Parrot running on FreeBSD running on VMWare running on Linux running on my home-built liquid-cooled micro form factor Opteron multimedia PC.

    Sheesh.

    1. Re:in other news... by jo42 · · Score: 1

      But, d00d, how else are Intel and AMD going to rationalize selling 10GHz processors???

      I remember the days when counting processor cycles was the thing...