Starlink experience

[Gigaron]

Mods: move or delete if not the right forum.

I just received and got my Starlink terminal installed. It’s in a temporary location on my deck until my J mount comes and then it will go on an existing ham antenna tower.

One side of the 50’ cable seems to be permanently connected to the antenna and the other side is large and at a 90 degree angle making it very difficult to fish through conduit. After configuration and boot up, I split the 2.4 and 5 gHz networks and my devices don’t know about the 2.4 since that band is speed limited. AFAIK, you cannot disable either network or move it to a specific channel.

 

[Gigaron]

Speeds are reasonable

 

[ecarfan]

Thanks for your report. Below your avatar is shows “San Bruno” and your TMC location is shown as “San Francisco”. Is your Starlink terminal installed in San Bruno or SF? Those are urban areas and I am surprised that Starlink offered you service there.

 

[Gigaron]

Thanks for your report. Below your avatar is shows “San Bruno” and your TMC location is shown as “San Francisco”. Is your Starlink terminal installed in San Bruno or SF? Those are urban areas and I am surprised that Starlink offered you service there.

San Bruno. Why surprised?

 

[ecarfan]

San Bruno. Why surprised?

It has always been my understanding that Starlink was intended for low density/rural areas and not urban/suburban areas.

I think you are lucky to by a customer.

 

[arnolddeleon]

The cable is removable from either end. In fact you will need to remove it from the antenna end if you want use the the their grommets (optional purchase)

They limit in the number of customers in an urban area. I have Starlink in Cupertino. I use it as a backup internet right now. From a speed perspective they're my second best option after Comcast.

I'm a little disappointed in the upload speeds, particularly with their new price.

 

[Dave EV]

I'm a little disappointed in the upload speeds, particularly with their new price.

What kind of upload speeds are you getting?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

A friend in Midcoast Maine has just got Starlink. They were on Redzone (fixed wireless using LTE and 5Gx).

So far, reporting better speeds, with better streaming and browsing.
Not needing to do uploads at this point.

They remarked that setup was easy,

They ordered a roof mount with the Dishy, but Dishy arrived by itself. The roof mount was needed because of trees (this is Maine).
Starlink billing started before the mount arrived. They eventually were able to figure out how to contact customer service, who replied after a couple of days(?). The early billing was reversed and supposedly the mount delivery was prioritized. Got it all up yesterday.

 

[arnolddeleon]

What kind of upload speeds are you getting?

I just checked I'm getting around 10 Mb/s. That's higher than what I remembered (I think it was around 7 Mb/s before)

 

[azjohn]

It has always been my understanding that Starlink was intended for low density/rural areas and not urban/suburban areas.

I think you are lucky to by a customer.

I am one of those rural customers Hughes was my only option besides the Orbi I was using and getting between 25-100 download speeds which I am grateful for and serves my needs

 

[Gigaron]

Need some help please. I am using a TP-Link ER605 load-balancing router with 60/40 weight to cable and Starlink.

I have neighbor trees which I cannot get above, so Starlink cuts out for 30 seconds every 10-ish minutes. However, my router sticks to it instead of switching to the cable path. Streaming is fine but video and VOIP calls freak out. Any ideas for router tweaks? I suppose I could lock Apple TV to Starlink and lock the phones and laptops to cable but would prefer not to.

 

[KSBA farmer]

I just received a Starlink installation kit. My plan is to set this up as a backup for my current 100/20 Mbs cable connection (static IP business plan). Cell coverage not available in this location. I am planning on mounting it on top of a chimney as that would give me the greatest view of the sky (closest tree is 100 ft away). Curious as to how often an internet connection is lost, as the majority of the use for either Zoom video and/or VPN to a remote server. What is the experience of this group? PS - I'm located in Santa Barbara County.

 

[petit_bateau]

For info I am getting Starlink user feedback from multiple users I know who are live-aboards on yachts off the west coast of the Americas, from Vancouver Island, Canada in the north down to Chiapas, Mexico in the south. To be clear these are long term liveaboards who do actually sail seriously - comments include when sailing underway as well as at anchor and moored. Various comments include,

"works great on anchor 150 mb down 50 up"

"It’s hit and miss offshore, we were in real rolling seas and more than 13 nm offshore so couldn’t connect at all, a friend [using his Starlink on a catamaran], slowed to 4 knots and had no problem"

"Avoid the RV and choose portability, RV won’t let you change to another option."

"sailing offshore, connected [now, sending this message to you]"

"Technically, it is illegal to use while underway, as Starlink doesn't have FCC approval for that. The Starlink website has a statement that says use while in motion will void the warranty. However, I don't believe it will be very long before use in motion is allowed and reception better."

"I have read that the 12 mile territorial limit is, for now, where we would lose service immediately. I've also read that some people have used it 100 miles offshore."

"Yesterday's max speed observation was 42Mbps and we experienced several dropped connections, but all of that will change when [dish is relocated as it is] temporarily lashed to the poop deck and partially obstructed at times."

An aspect I haven't delved into is who has legal authority over Starlink use when in international waters (i.e. outside 12nm territorial waters limit). Is that governed by USA-FCC, or what ?

 

[ecarfan]

"It’s hit and miss offshore, we were in real rolling seas and more than 13 nm offshore so couldn’t connect at all, a friend [using his Starlink on a catamaran], slowed to 4 knots and had no problem"

It does not surprise me that a Starlink receiver on a rolling boat would have difficulty maintaining a connection.

A catamaran is more stable than a small single hull boat so it would do better.

 

[petit_bateau]

It does not surprise me that a Starlink receiver on a rolling boat would have difficulty maintaining a connection.

A catamaran is more stable than a small single hull boat so it would do better.

Indeed, I'm not surprised either. Does the dish have any motion or attitude sensors in it and do we know their abilities? Does the dish have any beam forming and steering capability and if so how much?

The good news is that most sea areas will have extremely favourable contention ratios. Not necessarily so in the littoral, but elsewhere

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Indeed, I'm not surprised either. Does the dish have any motion or attitude sensors in it and do we know their abilities? Does the dish have any beam forming and steering capability and if so how much?

The good news is that most sea areas will have extremely favourable contention ratios. Not necessarily so in the littoral, but elsewhere

I don't believe it has sensors, I think it just adjusts to the relative shift in the satellites. Some boaters have tried disabling the motors.

 

[ecarfan]

Some boaters have tried disabling the motors.

Really? That seems like a bad idea. Surely the motors are needed for repositioning the dish when it moves between locations?

 

[bxr140]

Does the dish have any beam forming and steering capability and if so how much?

Satellite tracking during service is all beamforming. The UTs have motors but they are really just used for setup positioning, to account for mounting off-angles (as well as generally pointing the array toward the region that has the densest satellite coverage.)

 

[petit_bateau]

Satellite tracking during service is all beamforming. The UTs have motors but they are really just used for setup positioning, to account for mounting off-angles (as well as generally pointing the array toward the region that has the densest satellite coverage.)

Thanks bxr. I appreciate the motors are just for set up purposes. Do you have any insight into the beamforming capabilities ? Likewise do you know if there are any built-in motion and/or attitude sensors (MEMs likely) that could go into a stabilisation control loop.

(I guess if there are none, then presumably the intent will be to include them in a mobile-unit fairly soon, because the military will be screaming like crazy for them).

 

[ecarfan]

I have had my Starlink significantly reposition itself at a campsite hours after I first set it up and had good internet continuously.