Starlink

[John_Mc]

I tried that app the other day when I got notice that Starlink was available to order in my area. Couldn't get it to do anything other than open a camera. It just kept saying 'turn phone, tilt phone' but never an outcome.

Decided I'd wait for a few months because 1) $550 is a steep entry; and 2) It's winter and I don't want to go up on the roof right now. To give it a fair shake and evaluate well within the 30 day refund period I want to wait for warmer weather and get it on my roof.

Rob

Launch the app and aim the camera on the phone straight up, you'll see a normal camera view of the sky. Now slowly bring it down toward the horizon. Roughly half way down, you'll see that the image is now partially grayed out. If you turn in a circle, you'll see a circle of normal view in your camera. The dish needs a view upward - imagine a cone about 110˚ wide. Anything poking into the normal camera image area is an obstacle which will affect your satellite reception. The grayed out area does not matter. In my area, this "cone of visibility" is not quite straight up: it's tilted to the north by roughly 20˚. You need to find a spot for the dish where nothing pokes into that cone. There never is any output from the obstruction check just look around and find a spot that has no obstacles blocking the critical view area.

As far as I know, the app does not "locate the satellites", it's purely a visual sighting aid.

My temporary location is sitting on the picnic table in our side yard. It's been working great for coverage. In the spring, when things warm up, we'll mount it on the roof and figure out a permanent routing for the cable.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I cannot find it now, but on an AM newsfeed, Musk owns 1/3 of the orbiting satellite community already. That's amazing.

I didn't know that.

Until Musk started landing and reusing rocket engines I guess I just bought the the internet bull crap about the man. First I read the 2015 book about him and started watching interviews over the past 20 years.

Then I realized negative remarks were coming mainly from low end to high end jealous posters.

 

[BigBlue1]

Launch the app and aim the camera on the phone straight up, you'll see a normal camera view of the sky. Now slowly bring it down toward the horizon. Roughly half way down, you'll see that the image is now partially grayed out. If you turn in a circle, you'll see a circle of normal view in your camera. The dish needs a view upward - imagine a cone about 110˚ wide. Anything poking into the normal camera image area is an obstacle which will affect your satellite reception. The grayed out area does not matter. In my area, this "cone of visibility" is not quite straight up: it's tilted to the north by roughly 20˚. You need to find a spot for the dish where nothing pokes into that cone. There never is any output from the obstruction check just look around and find a spot that has no obstacles blocking the critical view area.

As far as I know, the app does not "locate the satellites", it's purely a visual sighting aid.

My temporary location is sitting on the picnic table in our side yard. It's been working great for coverage. In the spring, when things warm up, we'll mount it on the roof and figure out a permanent routing for the cable.

Interesting. That's all the app does is provide a camera view with a gray mask area to indicate the boundaries of the 'view' the dish needs? That has to be one of the least intuitive apps with a lack of guidance I've seen. At a minimum, they could have said "make sure nothing protrudes into the non-grayed areas of the camera view" to give some advice on how it should be used.

Thanks for the clarification though. That helps me understand.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Launch the app and aim the camera on the phone straight up, you'll see a normal camera view of the sky. Now slowly bring it down toward the horizon. Roughly half way down, you'll see that the image is now partially grayed out. If you turn in a circle, you'll see a circle of normal view in your camera. The dish needs a view upward - imagine a cone about 110˚ wide. Anything poking into the normal camera image area is an obstacle which will affect your satellite reception. The grayed out area does not matter. In my area, this "cone of visibility" is not quite straight up: it's tilted to the north by roughly 20˚. You need to find a spot for the dish where nothing pokes into that cone. There never is any output from the obstruction check just look around and find a spot that has no obstacles blocking the critical view area.

As far as I know, the app does not "locate the satellites", it's purely a visual sighting aid.

My temporary location is sitting on the picnic table in our side yard. It's been working great for coverage. In the spring, when things warm up, we'll mount it on the roof and figure out a permanent routing for the cable.

Thanks for that detailed write up.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I cannot find it now, but on an AM newsfeed, Musk owns 1/3 of the orbiting satellite community already. That's amazing.

Elon Musk's SpaceX now owns about a third of all active satellites in the sky - CNN

Found this just now.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Interesting. That's all the app does is provide a camera view with a gray mask area to indicate the boundaries of the 'view' the dish needs? That has to be one of the least intuitive apps with a lack of guidance I've seen. At a minimum, they could have said "make sure nothing protrudes into the non-grayed areas of the camera view" to give some advice on how it should be used.

Thanks for the clarification though. That helps me understand.

Didn’t help me. Lol

 

[BigBlue1]

Didn稚 help me. Lol

The short answer is that the app does nothing other than give a crude visualization of what might be in the way by placing a dark mask area on your camera view as you move the phone around.

 

[ning]

The short answer is that the app does nothing other than give a crude visualization of what might be in the way by placing a dark mask area on your camera view as you move the phone around.

I got a notice that I could sign up so I downloaded the app and checked this also - I agree the app is not intuitive, I moved it all around and determined that it was giving no feedback and finally decided it was just showing me what the needs clear.

I'd jump on the service except my company pays for truly unlimited 4gLTE which works fine for me at about 14Mbps with no drops, so I'd have to justify $500+$99/mo for occasional visitors convenience in not having to piggyback off of my phone's hotspot.

I'm still tempted but I can buy a grapple pretty soon on that money instead...

 

[buckeyefarmer]

The short answer is that the app does nothing other than give a crude visualization of what might be in the way by placing a dark mask area on your camera view as you move the phone around.

One can go outside and look up and get that. The app should at least tell you what direction to look, and what look angle. Best I can tell by the app, everyone is good, just aim it straight up and see clear sky.
Hope the install instructions are better than the app.

 

[cqaigy2]

One can go outside and look up and get that. The app should at least tell you what direction to look, and what look angle. Best I can tell by the app, everyone is good, just aim it straight up and see clear sky.
Hope the install instructions are better than the app.
View attachment 686307

I think you're too used to apps that do a bunch of stuff, this app is really very simple. You point it up, that's where the satellites are, as described earlier, the grayish part towards the horizon, you can ignore, the brighter part above the horizon, is where the sats would be if you were to have the service. So if you are in the clear, so to speak, than your in the clear, if you don't have open sky in the clear part, than you are not going to be happy. For instance, if you went into a car port, and used the app, you would see the roof/ceiling, in the clear part, and the sides would be in the grey part.