Starlink Dish - Lightning Protection

[PITA]

I've ordered Starlink and the kit arrives on Wednesday.

West Midlands, UK installation.

The satellite dish will be mounted (eventually) on our North facing wall above the roof line.

Has anybody fitted a Ground Earth, lightning rod, or surge protection device?

From what I understand the cabling that SpaceX use is powered Ethernet, so most 'passthrough' surge protector connectors don't work?? (Could be wrong).

Anyways, anyone got any ideas or experience.

Don't want to get unlucky and fry my house.

 

[TheRealWatto]

Very interesting topic. Planning on moving rurally in the next year and had Starlink in mind, never even though about this.

AFAIK there's only normal ground bonding in the power supply so a strike would probably kill at least that. It does use PoE, and it seems like the common choice is something like the Tupavco TP303. Would likely need to bond the mount and the PoE to your house ground, no doubt there's some BS#### connected with it. You'll need to talk with an electrician. I understand the Starlink may draw a bit higher current than normal PoE which may cause trouble with some equipment so will need to do some Googling.

Probably the risks are very low here in the UK depending on the mount height, but still worth considering.

 

[pgkevet]

Wouldn't the simplest solution be an alternate conductor. The Starlink dish is flat so not particularly attractive to a strike compared to a nice pointy object set higher with a thicker conductor to ground. Not that I see this as a likely scenario unless moving to a house on a high deserted moor with no trees or neighbours...

 

[MrBadger]

Just get another starlink- a lightning bolt won’t hit both…

 

[26ct2143]

I live in the countryside and the starlink is quite exposed here.
I have the pole it's mounted on earthed to a ground stake, with thick copper flat band.
I used to do a bit of amateur radio, and the starlink is on the antenna pole I used to use.
For me it's grounding static build up to earth. I'm no expert on this kind of stuff, but I think this reduces the chances of a strike and also removes static from the mount and thus the dish.
I think a strike is remote, but static build up could be more likely to cause problems.
I have thrown away outdoor wifi antenna that I was using to broadcast wifi over the farm, and I'm fairly sure it was because the antenna was un-grounded and static built up and killed it.

 

[Foucault]

Lighning protection is pretty expensive. Work colleague‘s house was hit by lightning destroying part of the roof about 10 years ago. As it’s pretty exposed, they added lightning protection as part of the rebuild, which added something like £2,000 to the cost. For them it was worth it given the months of disruption to sort everything out as chance of being hit again was quite high. Guess you have to balance cost with likelihood of being hit.

 

[PITA]

Lighning protection is pretty expensive. Work colleague‘s house was hit by lightning destroying part of the roof about 10 years ago. As it’s pretty exposed, they added lightning protection as part of the rebuild, which added something like £2,000 to the cost. For them it was worth it given the months of disruption to sort everything out as chance of being hit again was quite high. Guess you have to balance cost with likelihood of being hit.

Yep agreed.

If I can easily Isolate the Starlink kit, then I'm not bothered about blowing it up so much.

Just rather it didn't take down the whole street.

I can put the satellite dish on our roof, cabled outside to the Starlink Modem in the Conservatory on a Surge Protected plug.

The Conservatory power is fuse protected at the consumer board on a seperate ring.

If I then use it in modem mode, and attach another mesh router... I can keep the unit pretty much outside the house.

Maybe that'll work?

 

[Adopado]

Yep agreed.

If I can easily Isolate the Starlink kit, then I'm not bothered about blowing it up so much.

Just rather it didn't take down the whole street.

I can put the satellite dish on our roof, cabled outside to the Starlink Modem in the Conservatory on a Surge Protected plug.

The Conservatory power is fuse protected at the consumer board on a seperate ring.

If I then use it in modem mode, and attach another mesh router... I can keep the unit pretty much outside the house.

Maybe that'll work?

Is a Starlink dish more vulnerable than TV or old style internet dishes? Having had dishes for decades it never occurred to me that this was a significant risk factor... certainly never had an issue to date ******* ARRRGHHH

 

[mongo]

I've ordered Starlink and the kit arrives on Wednesday.

West Midlands, UK installation.

The satellite dish will be mounted (eventually) on our North facing wall above the roof line.

Has anybody fitted a Ground Earth, lightning rod, or surge protection device?

From what I understand the cabling that SpaceX use is powered Ethernet, so most 'passthrough' surge protector connectors don't work?? (Could be wrong).

Anyways, anyone got any ideas or experience.

Don't want to get unlucky and fry my house.

The PoE is on their custom cable, so you couldn't fit a surge suppressor there.
Two options are:
Air gap: use Starlink wifi and mesh nodes, or add a 3rd party access point/ router as a repeater.
Hard wire: get the ethernet adapter and route that through a suppressor before the rest of your kit.

I'm set up hard wired, but previously used repeater with no issues. I do worry a little about the other items sharing the same UPS. Although, mine is ground mouted, so low chance of a direct strike.

 

[PITA]

Is a Starlink dish more vulnerable than TV or old style internet dishes? Having had dishes for decades it never occurred to me that this was a significant risk factor... certainly never had an issue to date ******* ARRRGHHH

I spoke with my electrician yesterday evening (via email) and he's got Starlink as well.

Basically, as he knows our house geography and layout, he said not to worry about it. He's got Starlink as well without any Lightning isolation/protection.

I'm going to run my Starlink cabling into the Conservatory, and then set it up to my old Netgear Orbi Wifi 6 Mesh router, with a Satellite Orbi in the house.

The 1 Gbps Fibre Broadband is connected to another Netgear Orbi Wifi 6E Mesh router, so they'll both run side by side.

 

[mongo]

I spoke with my electrician yesterday evening (via email) and he's got Starlink as well.

Basically, as he knows our house geography and layout, he said not to worry about it. He's got Starlink as well without any Lightning isolation/protection.

I'm going to run my Starlink cabling into the Conservatory, and then set it up to my old Netgear Orbi Wifi 6 Mesh router, with a Satellite Orbi in the house.

The 1 Gbps Fibre Broadband is connected to another Netgear Orbi Wifi 6E Mesh router, so they'll both run side by side.

Woah, Starlink and 1 Gbps Fibre?

 

[pgkevet]

When I've seen lightning rods on old churches they were essentially a 3/4 inch square copper rod running between top rod and earth.
If my aged memory recalls then 'electricity' runs on the surface of wires so simply using cooper water pipe should work just as well. A deeply buried earth rod and the top rod very pointy because once you get the ionisation related to a lightning strike the ion stream will be further at the point. So long as it's on the same roof as the dish and higher it should be struck preferentially . It wouldn't be expensive to DIY it.

 

[TheRealWatto]

The PoE is on their custom cable, so you couldn't fit a surge suppressor there.
Two options are:
Air gap: use Starlink wifi and mesh nodes, or add a 3rd party access point/ router as a repeater.
Hard wire: get the ethernet adapter and route that through a suppressor before the rest of your kit.

I'm set up hard wired, but previously used repeater with no issues. I do worry a little about the other items sharing the same UPS. Although, mine is ground mouted, so low chance of a direct strike.

Their custom cable is apparently just a CAT 5e ethernet cable, so you could cut it, crimp RJ-45 plugs on and stick a surge protection device in between. Apparently it's not standard PoE in that all the pairs have voltage on them because of the dish power needs (normally only two pairs), and a couple are flipped polarity. There are various posts around the social media with information but all at your own risk.

I'd think the cost and risk and faff of the work needing doing vs. the actual anticipated risk of a lightning strike puts it into the probably not worth the bother region. If the plan is to stick it up on a pole in the middle of a field then it might be worth looking into (you'll have other considerations doing that also) but on a mount on the ridge of your house in the middle of suburbia probably not.

 

[HenryT]

To paraphrase Lee Trevino - 'Stick a one-iron up there. Even God can't hit a one-iron.'

 

[PITA]

Their custom cable is apparently just a CAT 5e ethernet cable, so you could cut it, crimp RJ-45 plugs on and stick a surge protection device in between. Apparently it's not standard PoE in that all the pairs have voltage on them because of the dish power needs (normally only two pairs), and a couple are flipped polarity. There are various posts around the social media with information but all at your own risk.

I'd think the cost and risk and faff of the work needing doing vs. the actual anticipated risk of a lightning strike puts it into the probably not worth the bother region. If the plan is to stick it up on a pole in the middle of a field then it might be worth looking into (you'll have other considerations doing that also) but on a mount on the ridge of your house in the middle of suburbia probably not.

That was our Electricians viewpoint...

 

[PITA]

Woah, Starlink and 1 Gbps Fibre?

Yeah, I've got a 1 Gbps fibre broadband on a Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh network (main + 2 satellites). Which works well, mostly.

But I fancy trying the SpaceX Starlink on another Netgear Orbi 6 Mesh network (main + 1 satellite), to run side by side.

Our house has a lot of connected devices (over 100), so I'm going to have a play around with it all...

 

[mongo]

Yeah, I've got a 1 Gbps fibre broadband on a Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh network (main + 2 satellites). Which works well, mostly.

But I fancy trying the SpaceX Starlink on another Netgear Orbi 6 Mesh network (main + 1 satellite), to run side by side.

Our house has a lot of connected devices (over 100), so I'm going to have a play around with it all...

View attachment 859549

Nice!
I have RV Starlink on one side and sub 8 Mbps DSL on the other...
Most devices have been transitioned...

 

[Adopado]

Yeah, I've got a 1 Gbps fibre broadband on a Netgear Orbi 6E Mesh network (main + 2 satellites). Which works well, mostly.

But I fancy trying the SpaceX Starlink on another Netgear Orbi 6 Mesh network (main + 1 satellite), to run side by side.

Our house has a lot of connected devices (over 100), so I'm going to have a play around with it all...

View attachment 859549

Are those pings as they’re supposed to be? I also wonder at the extreme asymmetry of most high speed broadband… I’m sure there must be a good reason for it but…

 

[PITA]

Are those pings as they’re supposed to be? I also wonder at the extreme asymmetry of most high speed broadband… I’m sure there must be a good reason for it but…

Most probably a commercial pricing separation.

Domestic residents mainly need fast download speeds.

Maybe it becomes a more commercial requirement for high capacity upload speeds... so they'll charge more for that service.

Also might deter high capacity zombie networks, as domestic hardware tends to be less protected from cyber criminals

 

[MrT3]

I also wonder at the extreme asymmetry of most high speed broadband… I’m sure there must be a good reason for it but…

There are technical reasons why upstream is limited, all working on premise that residential users need a lot more downstream than upstream. Typically they only give you enough upstream to cope with all the return acknowledgements to achieve the full download speed.