Starlink

[KilroyJC]

As some mentioned recently, here. I noticed that my dish is pointed more easterly than before. A significant change in position. This is new. I will do some speed tests tomorrow.

Now I have to look at mine when it gets light…

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My normal speed test showed 30 Mbps, then it gives you the advanced option. I got 131Mbps to router and 99 Mbps to my phone. Wonder why the difference.

 

[JethroB]

I’m in the Southeast US, almost on the Florida line. My dish pointed due north at about 60 degrees from horizontal until recently. Now it has turn NNE. I rarely see the 100-200Mbs speeds I did a year ago. Mostly now 40-80 but good enough for my needs. Not wild about two $10 price increases in such a short period.

 

[cqaigy2]

My normal speed test showed 30 Mbps, then it gives you the advanced option. I got 131Mbps to router and 99 Mbps to my phone. Wonder why the difference. View attachment 785909
View attachment 785910

Probably something about your WiFi, I believe, anything above 54Mb is mimo but im not sure about WiFi 6.

 

[ponytug]

My normal speed test showed 30 Mbps, then it gives you the advanced option. I got 131Mbps to router and 99 Mbps to my phone. Wonder why the difference. View attachment 785909
View attachment 785910

I have noticed that repeated running of the speed test tends to improve the reported speed. Whether it is some "auto-speed reduction" algorithm, or real, I don't know. I do know that the advanced speed test "router to internet" section is the one that I pay attention to.

All the best,

Peter

 

[ponytug]

There is a new firmware release rolling out. I wonder if it is important as it downloaded it and rebooted in the middle of the afternoon.

We have been having snow, and snow squalls that seem to get ahead of Dishy's heating function.

All the best,

Peter

 

[sd455dan]

Another Falcon 9 launch today
21 Second Gen Starlink satellites

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Inlooked for the advanced test option but I don’t have it.
Here is a shot of the new orientation of dishy. The seem on the roof is about 3 degrees north facing. And that was about what dishy was pointed to before. Now it is about 43 degrees NNE.

 

[ponytug]

@WoodChuckDad The advanced speed test option comes up if you click on "Statistics" then scroll down to "Throughput", and click "Speed Test" there, allow it to run the full speed test, and then, finally, a new option appears at the bottom of the screen after you run the basic speed test that is labeled "Run Advanced Speed Test". Yes, it is a little hidden.

Also filed in the hidden secret handshake section is that if you go to Settings>Advanced > Debug Data, there is quite a bit of information about the status of the system, including the ping time to the router, and the ping time from the router to Dishy ("Cable ping latency"), as wells as the percentage of lost packets, the status of the LAN link, and a wealth of other information.

All the best,

Peter

 

[K5lwq]

My normal speed test showed 30 Mbps, then it gives you the advanced option. I got 131Mbps to router and 99 Mbps to my phone. Wonder why the difference. View attachment 785909
View attachment 785910

Try putting your iPhone in airplane mode for a minute then turn off airplane mode. When you run the advanced test again you should see a lot better numbers to the router. I do not know why but that works for me.

 

[KilroyJC]

There is a new firmware release rolling out. I wonder if it is important as it downloaded it and rebooted in the middle of the afternoon.

We have been having snow, and snow squalls that seem to get ahead of Dishy's heating function.

All the best,

Peter

We have not had any significant snow to test out Dishay’s capabilities, but I wonder if (depending on Dishy’s normal operating position) if manually running a heating cycle, then putting it in “Stow” to allow snow to slide off, then reqctivating it would be a viable option in severe weather?

Also, I looked at my unit and it also has reoriented about 15 degrees more eastward, elevation appears the same.

 

[scootr]

Been getting some repeated time periods of poor service in the evenings. Peak use? Disappointing at best. It is always better when I get back on in the early am. Last night I had to switch back over to my cell hotspot just to have an online conversation with somebody. Now 170 / 11 at 4 am

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Try putting your iPhone in airplane mode for a minute then turn off airplane mode. When you run the advanced test again you should see a lot better numbers to the router. I do not know why but that works for me.

Iused to have to do this frequently when using a booster system for our cellular.

 

[cqaigy2]

Inlooked for the advanced test option but I don’t have it.
Here is a shot of the new orientation of dishy. The seem on the roof is about 3 degrees north facing. And that was about what dishy was pointed to before. Now it is about 43 degrees NNE.
View attachment 786080
View attachment 786081

Thread drift warning!

What are those things in a row on your roof?

 

[scootr]

Thread drift warning!

What are those things in a row on your roof?

This ^^^

 

[LittleBill21]

Thread drift warning!

What are those things in a row on your roof?

This ^^^

they stop snow/ ice from coming down in one large piece and killing you

 

[ponytug]

We have not had any significant snow to test out Dishay’s capabilities, but I wonder if (depending on Dishy’s normal operating position) if manually running a heating cycle, then putting it in “Stow” to allow snow to slide off, then reqctivating it would be a viable option in severe weather?

Also, I looked at my unit and it also has reoriented about 15 degrees more eastward, elevation appears the same.

Yes, actually the heating was on prior to the snowfall, so that didn't help us.

When I went out to check on things, I could see water dripping off Dishy, but the heating wasn't enough to keep up, and we ended up losing the Starlink satellite signal completely. (3/4"(?) of wet snow) I ended up stowing the dish, which went much faster than I expected, but the snow stuck. In the interests of speed, I climbed up, and with a quick wipe removed the snow. Back on the ground, I "unstowed" Dishy and we were back in business.

All the best,

Peter

 

[scootr]

I think that was why the early Dish TV systems went to mesh dishes. We had one in the 80s

 

[BigBlue1]

I routinely get over 50Mb/s from Starlink. Often better than that. Today, for instance, when I looked for and ran the advanced speed test I got 149Mb/s from standard test and 175Mb/s from advanced test. Anything over 30-ish is enough to make me happy in my rural environment compared to other options. SL might be in a challenging situation with the growth spurt taxing their existing sat infrastructure but they continue to launch more, better birds and I have no worries that it will continue to be the best solution for rural areas. Plus, I got a $20/month price decrease recently. Color me a happy customer. Now if they would just do better for support inquiries...

 

[Fallon]

Wired connections are always better than wireless. Especially with respect to WiFi. Think of wireless like a room. If there are 2 people in the room you can speak & hear really well. There may be occasional airplane noise or something outside that room that causes interference. Add 20 people to the room all talking & it gets really hard for the original 2 people to communicate. They can still do it, but background noise will often make it hard to hear. You can still get outside noise as well. WiFi works exactly the same way. 2 devices in the middle of nowhere with no interference will be really fast. Add in more WiFi devices (doesn't matter if they are on your network or not) & they start interfering. Any RF interference from electronics, microwaves (they operate at the 2.4ghz frequency WiFi usually uses) will cause problems as well.

I can have very high end WiFi gear sitting a few feet apart & get inconsistent results just because something else happens to transmit when I'm doing testing. So seeing different performance from your iPhone to the Internet vs the wired router to the Internet is quite expected under most circumstances. I live on 5 acres off a dirt road & still get noticable WiFi interference a lot. Anybody in suburbia will get more, living in an apartment with everybody having WiFi will be really problematic.

Using 5ghz instead of 2.4ghz WiFi help. 5ghz has more bandwidth & shorter range. The shorter the range the better as it means your neighbors WiFi is less likely to interfere with yours.

SpaceX Unveils 'V2 Mini' Starlink Satellites With Quadruple the Capacity - Slashdot It looks like Starlink is now launching better satellites already to help improve things on the satellite end. This won't affect WiFi obviously & they really can't do anything about that.