Got my Starlink today......

[Dutch_12078]

59 minutes ago, docj said:

Tomorrow I'm going to put the Dishy on a more permanent mount which will involve moving it a bit.   Do I need to get it to start over and look for obstructions, etc?  If so, how to I do that?

Dishy should reorient itself automatically, just as it did in the video above when the boat went under a bridge.

[Zulu]

1 hour ago, docj said:

Tomorrow I'm going to put the Dishy on a more permanent mount which will involve moving it a bit.   Do I need to get it to start over and look for obstructions, etc?  If so, how to I do that?

Stow the dish first. Then plug it in again. That’s all I did. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by Zulu

[docj]

Here's my Dishy happily mounted at its new home.  I now plan on trenching from the dish to our shed.  I'll run some 1" conduit to put in the trench and will keep the POE adapter and router in the shed.  As for the conduit, its clear that the Starlink Ethernet cable has to be rated for outdoor use, but there's no indicaiton that it is approved for direct burial.

FWIW given the number of live oak trees in our park, it was a just a matter of luck that we have a clear shot at the correct part of the sky without having to use a large tower.  We're getting no dropouts from obstructions.

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by docj

[RV_]

👍👍👍

[Zulu]

7 hours ago, docj said:

Here's my Dishy happily mounted at its new home. 

Neat. Was hoping that mobile Starlink would be available this year, but think it's more like 2022 at best. The only info on it is that it's "in the pipe". Keeping my mobile HughesNet Gen 5 equipment until then.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Zulu

[lappir]

12 hours ago, docj said:

Here's my Dishy happily mounted at its new home.  I now plan on trenching from the dish to our shed.  I'll run some 1" conduit to put in the trench and will keep the POE adapter and router in the shed.  As for the conduit, its clear that the Starlink Ethernet cable has to be rated for outdoor use, but there's no indicaiton that it is approved for direct burial.

FWIW given the number of live oak trees in our park, it was a just a matter of luck that we have a clear shot at the correct part of the sky without having to use a large tower.  We're getting no dropouts from obstructions.

Is this not allowed to be installed on the rig, or not allowed to be used "Mobile"

Rod

[palmeris]

Got a new email from Starlink yesterday, contents below. No mention of the mobile version in it. My order has been pushed to Mid 2022.... 

Thank you for being a supporter of Starlink! Over 14 million people have inquired about Starlink service in their area and today Starlink is available in over 20 countries (and counting).      The Starlink team has been working hard to expand service and increase capacity while continuously improving quality of service. We will be able to accommodate more users per area as we increase the number of satellites in orbit.    Check delivery timelines in your account   Silicon shortages over the last 6 months have slowed our expected production rate and impacted our ability to fulfill many Starlink orders this year. We apologize for the delay and are working hard across our engineering, supply chain, and production teams to improve and streamline our product and factory to increase our production rate.   You can check estimated delivery times by logging into your account page on Starlink.com. You will still receive an email from the Starlink team when your order is ready to ship, and you may cancel your order at any time for a full refund of your deposit.   Latest Starlink now in production We recently released the latest version of Starlink which was designed for high volume manufacturing. The latest version of Starlink has comparable performance to the previous version and will begin to ship globally next year.   Expanding to more countries across the world  Since our October 2020 launch in the United States we have expanded our service to 20 additional countries: Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland, Portugal, Chile, Poland, Italy, Czech Republic, Mexico, Sweden, and Croatia. Pending regulatory approval, we are planning to launch in an additional 45+ new countries by the end of 2022.     More satellites in orbit with newer technology  We recently completed our 31st Starlink launch with our latest generation of satellites that are equipped with inter-satellite laser links, which enable our satellites to transfer data between each other. Once fully deployed, inter-satellite laser links will make Starlink one of the fastest options available to transfer data around the world.   Thank you for your continued support!    The Starlink Team

[Zulu]

4 hours ago, lappir said:

Is this not allowed to be installed on the rig, or not allowed to be used "Mobile"

You can try. A few people have with limited success. There’s two big gotchas:

- The current RV site you moved to may not be served by Starlink yet

- Since you can only set up your Starlink dish for one area at a time, you may lose access to your original home area. However, if this doesn’t matter to you, then have at it!

[docj]

6 hours ago, lappir said:

Is this not allowed to be installed on the rig, or not allowed to be used "Mobile"

Rod

At present Starlink isn't authorized for true "mobile" use.  If you take it to a new location you have to submit a "change of location" and you may or may not have service at that location.

My assumption is that we'll be at our home base location ~8 months a year or more.  I will get plenty of service out of my system.  It is so much better than the alternatives for us that I don't care if I have to pay to keep it operational for a couple of months when we're not here.

Edited November 24, 2021 by docj

[lappir]

Thanks for the replies. I won't be getting one any time soon, but thought they were supposed to be the next best thing to the "Mobile Lifestyle Folks."

 

Rod

[Dutch_12078]

36 minutes ago, lappir said:

Thanks for the replies. I won't be getting one any time soon, but thought they were supposed to be the next best thing to the "Mobile Lifestyle Folks."

 

Rod

The mobile terminals for trucks, buses, RV's, boats, etc. are in the works, but no definite timeline has been published. 

[docj]

1 hour ago, lappir said:

Thanks for the replies. I won't be getting one any time soon, but thought they were supposed to be the next best thing to the "Mobile Lifestyle Folks."

Even when mobile Starlink is available it should be understood that it requires a fairly large angle of open sky.  It's not the same as pointing a traditional satellite dish and being able to find a path between the trees.  The size of the required clear aperature will get smaller once more satellite are in orbit, but there are plenty of tree-covered campgrounds where Starlink may never work. 

I understand that some of today's RVers don't like trees because they reduce the available sunlight for their solar panels. Personally, I prefer trees to camping in open fields, but that's JMO.

[Kirk W]

12 hours ago, docj said:

Personally, I prefer trees to camping in open fields, but that's JMO.

👌

[Dutch_12078]

I'm thinking a demountable mobile Starlink terminal would give us the option of locating the unit for the best sky view just as some of us currently do with our sat TV dishes. I've strung 200' of coax for my sat TV dish a few times, I wonder what the limit will be for the Starlink mobile dish... 

[Zulu]

Starlink Rectangular

[Vladimir]

On 11/25/2021 at 9:31 AM, Dutch_12078 said:

I'm thinking a demountable mobile Starlink terminal would give us the option of locating the unit for the best sky view just as some of us currently do with our sat TV dishes. I've strung 200' of coax for my sat TV dish a few times, I wonder what the limit will be for the Starlink mobile dish... 

In the video, he states that it comes with an optional 150 foot power cable. 

That smaller size dish is interesting.  Does anybody know enough about the electronics to compare it to the round dish??  Do you need more satellites for the smaller dish??

As to the tree question, with my round dish it has a 100 foot power cord and up to 200 foot router cord.  In my case, I just stuck my Honda generator next to the dish for testing. 

If you cannot find a opening in a 300 foot radius....I suspect your living in a rain forest somewhere!!! 

Speaking as a forester, living in a solid forest is awful.  Did that for a couple of years...never again.

[RV_]

13 hours ago, Zulu said:

Starlink Rectangular

Great video thanks!

[Dutch_12078]

5 hours ago, Vladimir said:

In the video, he states that it comes with an optional 150 foot power cable. 

That smaller size dish is interesting.  Does anybody know enough about the electronics to compare it to the round dish??  Do you need more satellites for the smaller dish??

As to the tree question, with my round dish it has a 100 foot power cord and up to 200 foot router cord.  In my case, I just stuck my Honda generator next to the dish for testing. 

If you cannot find a opening in a 300 foot radius....I suspect your living in a rain forest somewhere!!! 

Speaking as a forester, living in a solid forest is awful.  Did that for a couple of years...never again.

Thanks, I know the current rectangular units have the 150 ft cable available, but that doesn't tell me if that's the actual reliable working limit or not. The specs on how many sats need to be in view may be out there for the rectangular "dish", but I haven't seen them. We also don't know what the mobile units will look like. I've successfully tested my TV sat dish at 300 ft, but I haven't actually needed more than 200 ft so far. I've always been able to find enough of a hole in the trees for sat TV, but Starlink needs a lot more of a hole than the fixed TV sats as you know...

[Vladimir]

I plugged in a 50 foot extension cord into the one hundred foot power supply cable.  Then a 125 foot cable for the router.

Using speedtest.net I am getting 175 to 200 Mbsp with a ping between 26 and 36.  That is MUCH faster than my 100 Mbps system at my house, though the ping at my house is 8.

However, I was on a ZOOM conference call last night and the video froze five times during an hour call.  Froze for maybe 30 seconds max, and I got the message "your internet is unstable".  I assume that was coming from Zoom.

Not sure what is causing the drop outs, except maybe a lack of satellites at any point in time.  My neighbor did mention the drop outs when he tested the system, so I suspect it is a system problem at this point in time.  Not sure I would have been happy if I was still working and using Zoom for conference calls.

Next week, hopefully I will get a chance to move the dish to an area with "less snow" in winter.  That will also have almost a complete block from the Northeast to the Southeast portion of the sky.  I am, hope that it works good enough in that located to be used for internet just maybe not for Zoom calls.

Next spring, I will set the entire system in its current location.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Vladimir

[Vladimir]

UPDATE 2.

I took StarLink down from my cabin down into town to see if it would work.  It does.  So the distance  is within the "cell" established for the unit.

The distance is exactly 11 miles, as the crow flies.  I set up Starlink in my in town house and it quickly found the satellites and connected.  I quickly did a speed test and it was about 130 Mbsp so a bit slower than up at the meadow.

The town location is totally blocked in azimuth from about 180 degrees to 270 degrees.  

Next test is to move it so it is totally blocked to the southern horizon. 

I am going to plug in a kill-a-watt meter and see how much power the dish is drawing.

 

 

 

[docj]

On 11/25/2021 at 11:31 AM, Dutch_12078 said:

I've strung 200' of coax for my sat TV dish a few times, I wonder what the limit will be for the Starlink mobile dish... 

From what I've read, on the Gen 1 Starlink terminal they're pushing ~100 watts down the 100' cable using a 56V POE.  I can understand why they are reluctant to let you add cable to that run.

[Dutch_12078]

3 hours ago, docj said:

From what I've read, on the Gen 1 Starlink terminal they're pushing ~100 watts down the 100' cable using a 56V POE.  I can understand why they are reluctant to let you add cable to that run.

That makes sense, thanks...

[Vladimir]

4 hours ago, docj said:

From what I've read, on the Gen 1 Starlink terminal they're pushing ~100 watts down the 100' cable using a 56V POE.  I can understand why they are reluctant to let you add cable to that run.

I think that is less of an issue than people think.

The power box has a 120 volt plug, and several ports...one for the 100 foot run to the dish and the other for the router.

I did use 125 feet on the router portion and it worked fine.  My neighbor used 200 feet and it worked fine.

I did plug in an extension cord in the power box so that it was 50 feet from the house,  It worked fine.  I am going to run about 150 feet @ 120 volts to the power box that I will mount on my last solar panel.

It is odd, to think of the "power" box being halfway between your dish and your home.  But it is small, and it works if you need to extend your run.  There is NO SWITCH on the power box.

[Vladimir]

Update 3.....

I went ahead and moved the dish to a "blocked" location.  No view to the south, and the west is blocked to about 50 degrees in elevation.  The north and east were totally clear.

Speedtest results were PING 27  download  46.82  upload  5.86.

I suspect there might be MORE drop-outs, but I am typing this on the StarLink connection and so far, so good.

I am concerned about the slow upload speed, but the download at 46.82 is totally useable for web browsing.  I did briefly watch some UTUBE video's and they were fine.

It might be that StarLink is focused on the 100 Mpbs as the minimum experience they want to provide.  But even at 46.82 that is much, much better than ZERO.

[folivier]

Vlad that sounds pretty good.  My Colorado cabin has quite a few trees around it but if I can get the dish on the peak of the roof it might work.  Or there is a meadow nearby about 200' so that's a possibility also.  I wish there was a device available that would show your signal.  I've done their location app and it says it won't work.  Your 46 DL speeds are much better than the 10-12 from the local DSL we have there.

Thanks!