Help for Real-Time Drifter Maps via Google Maps

Basics

• This page shows the last 15 hours of drifter tracks (if there are any):
  
• Pressing the 'UPDATE' button fetches the latest data.
  
• The 'Grids' checkbox toggles showing/hiding any applicable grid boxes or points.
  
• This page will automatically refresh every 10 minutes, and the 'Timer' shows how long since the page was last refreshed.
• You can zoom in and out and move the map by using the controls on the left side:
  
• You can drag the map around by holding down the left mouse button:
  
• In-water past positions are a simple colored dot:
  
• Out-of-water past positions are a simple light gray dot (only shown if the 'Only in-water' box is cleared):
  
• Positions dots can be connected by checking 'Show tracks' (if the 'Show only in-water reports' box is cleared, then reports including out-of-water will be connected):
  
• Latest drifter positions are marked with either a '+' (in-water) or '×' (out-of-water):
  
• The right side shows the specifics of each drifter:
  
• Clicking on any the lines on the right side will center that drifter in the map and show a balloon of up to the last 10 reports from that drifter:
  
• The reports contain this information (with an example):
  
  
  1. Drifter number (i.e. 16752892)
  2. Latitude (degrees, a comma, then decimal minutes) (i.e. 33° 27.73´)
  3. Longitude (degrees, a comma, then decimal minutes) (i.e. -118° 44.71´)
  4. The number of satellites used to get the position (i.e. 7 used)
  5. Communications signal strength, where the more negative the number the weaker the signal. Strengths are from about -40 to -115 (i.e. -75 db), and a four digit number is an error code.
  6. Water flag, where 0 = out-of-water, and 1 = in-water (i.e. 0)
  7. Age of the report in minutes (i.e. 704 minutes ago)
  
  Iridium drifter reports (not shown here) contain this information:
  
  1. Drifter number
  2. Latitude (degrees, a comma, then decimal minutes)
  3. Longitude (degrees, a comma, then decimal minutes)
  4. Fix Quality of the position, where 0=No fix, 1=Bad or questionable fix, 2=2D and 3=3D
  5. Battery (Volts)
  6. SST (C) ('N/A' if unavailable)
  7. Water flag, where 0 = out-of-water, and 1 = in-water
  8. Age of the report in minutes

Limitations / Issues

• This page requires javascript (version 1.5) to work. It works well in Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+, Internet Explorer 6+, and Safari 2+.
• Deselecting (clearing the check) from the 'Show only in-water reports' box may take a few seconds to plot all those reports (depends on how many there are).
• If the page is non-responsive, try reloading/refreshing the page (usually by pressing the F5 key).