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SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

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Who says your house could not be moving. There are companies that move houses that every day. I say order and let them figure it out!
Oh, they (SpaceX) don't care. They even sent a promotional email since I'm in a waitlist area for regular service (after I ordered 'RV').
RV/ roaming just means I'm low priority for bandwidth. We'll see how low next week.
 
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The confirmation email I got from Starlink after making payment said I should receive the hardware by June 1st.
But in fact I received my hardware yesterday, May 27th. That was fast; received three days after placing my order.

Have not set it up outside yet to test it because I’m away for a few days (not with my trailer).
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SpaceX tells FCC Starlink now has over 400,00 subscribers

SpaceX told federal regulators in a presentation last week that its Starlink satellite internet service now has over 400,000 subscribers around the world.

The disclosure indicates the company is steadily growing subscribers for the service, which began in October 2020. Two months ago, Starlink said it had about 250,000 subscribers. At the start of this year, it said it had about 145,000 subscribers. The figures include both individual consumers and businesses.
That is pretty remarkable growth.
 
Wow, it is really significant how much of the sky you need to be able to use this. I have pretty darn good access for a rural location and Starlink is complaining about partially obstructed sky.

It is saying that my obstructions are causing regular satellite interruptions, and I'm not sure just how much better I could get it. I might try a short extension on my roof mount once installed to see if an additional 3 feet vertical would change anything.
 
Wow, it is really significant how much of the sky you need to be able to use this. I have pretty darn good access for a rural location and Starlink is complaining about partially obstructed sky.

It is saying that my obstructions are causing regular satellite interruptions, and I'm not sure just how much better I could get it. I might try a short extension on my roof mount once installed to see if an additional 3 feet vertical would change anything.
Yep. If you live anywhere with trees, you may have an issue. I was going to get Starlink for my in-laws, but the app said nope.
 
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Yep. If you live anywhere with trees, you may have an issue. I was going to get Starlink for my in-laws, but the app said nope.
We live in the center of a 7 acre clearing, in a valley surrounded by trees. The area around us is clear except one tall tree for about 200' from my house, then the redwood fills the valley sides. Solar access according to a Suneye is better than 85%. Starlink app says I will see an obstruction every 4 minutes.

I agree, that anyone living in a forest will not get this to work. Even forest adjacent you might not get this to work. I wonder how sensitive it is to movement such as on top of a pole? I guess if it can work on a moving vehicle it might be ok on an elevated pole.
 
We live in the center of a 7 acre clearing, in a valley surrounded by trees. The area around us is clear except one tall tree for about 200' from my house, then the redwood fills the valley sides. Solar access according to a Suneye is better than 85%. Starlink app says I will see an obstruction every 4 minutes.

I agree, that anyone living in a forest will not get this to work. Even forest adjacent you might not get this to work. I wonder how sensitive it is to movement such as on top of a pole? I guess if it can work on a moving vehicle it might be ok on an elevated pole.
How deep is the valley?
Did you use the app to check clearance above the horizon?
Are you in a full coverage or waitlist area?
 
How deep is the valley?
Did you use the app to check clearance above the horizon?
Are you in a full coverage or waitlist area?
The valley is a couple hundred feet deep, we see the full sun on the dish from 8 am to 4-5 pm at our house this time of year.

Our area is waitlisted, and I knew that despite the coverage issues it's probably better than the current point-to-point solution. I only evaluated one possible location for the dish with the app. I just honestly thought that seeing 75% of the sky would be enough if trees around the edges were all I had.

The reality is that even my mostly open skys in the Santa Cruz mountains are considered partially obstructed, and to expect regular very short outages of a 4-10 seconds. This will probably get better with more satellites and even now is not causing significant issues.
 
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You also need a sat that has covisibility to a ground station, and if you’re in the Bay Area that basically means north in the Central Valley (up by Williams). Certainly the gateway links go to a lower elevation than the user links, but it’s possible some of your apparent ~southern exposure is not useable because of this geometry.
That explains why I see it pointing north more often, and my North and west exposures are not as good as the south ones.
 
You also need a sat that has covisibility to a ground station, and if you’re in the Bay Area that basically means north in the Central Valley (up by Williams). Certainly the gateway links go to a lower elevation than the user links, but it’s possible some of your apparent ~southern exposure is not useable because of this geometry.
Hopefully Tesla will start launching the satellites with satellite-to satellite relay that have talked about.
 
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We live in the center of a 7 acre clearing, in a valley surrounded by trees. The area around us is clear except one tall tree for about 200' from my house, then the redwood fills the valley sides. Solar access according to a Suneye is better than 85%. Starlink app says I will see an obstruction every 4 minutes.

I agree, that anyone living in a forest will not get this to work. Even forest adjacent you might not get this to work. I wonder how sensitive it is to movement such as on top of a pole? I guess if it can work on a moving vehicle it might be ok on an elevated pole.
Is it working on a moving vehicle yet? I thought that was a future enhancement. I believe the RV set up is being stationary in location A and then location B.
 
Hopefully Tesla will start launching the satellites with satellite-to satellite relay that have talked about.
Revent versions have laser links and were deemed to be active "soon" in a January Elon Tweet.

Is it working on a moving vehicle yet? I thought that was a future enhancement. I believe the RV set up is being stationary in location A and then location B.
It does, they're testing it on planes currently. Normal unit works on terrestrial vehicles now, just not super well.
 
It is nice they updated the signup page to allow you to choose countries now (a few hundred choices, I assume it is a complete list). I only saw one Korea listed and it's not under the S section of the list, just Korea Republic Of. Singapore and China and Russia and most any country I could think to test were on the list, the one I couldn't find was North Korea.

So now Starlink (starlink . com / map) exists and instead of trying to type in names the hard way you can just look for the countries that have the darkest gray color to see who isn't in.

fwiw there are less than 10 countries not listed as coming soon.

  • Russia
  • Belarus
  • North Korea
  • China
  • Afghanistan
  • Iran
  • Syria
  • Venezuela
  • Cuba
 
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