Starlink

[Torvy]

Now I need to drop about $100 for ethernet adapter and either a pole or wall mount. Roofs are metal and none of the typical adapters will work. I'm considering trying on one of the posts of my lean-to. The pole mount is probably too short to help much. This is an old picture, but that far post is north. About 14' high. Thoughts?

 

[K5lwq]

I used an old tv antenna telescopic mast. 50’ I believe. It works great to get over the trees.

Now I need to drop about $100 for ethernet adapter and either a pole or wall mount. Roofs are metal and none of the typical adapters will work. I'm considering trying on one of the posts of my lean-to. The pole mount is probably too short to help much. This is an old picture, but that far post is north. About 14' high. Thoughts?

View attachment 822810

 

[ponytug]

Hey, guys, I am very interested in the reliability issues. I teach online, so I cannot have my Internet service go down for even a second. How often do you get old is it and how long do they last?

If you can't afford being down occasionally, keep looking. Starlink does not come with a quality of service guarantee.

Every link comes with a quality of service. Starlink's is "when you have service, you have service".

You would need a commercial setup with bonding, and a remote site to handle the bond. Search Speedify and Peplink to get started. I would strongly suggest hiring a professional to help you.

All the best,

Peter

 

[ponytug]

Now I need to drop about $100 for ethernet adapter and either a pole or wall mount. Roofs are metal and none of the typical adapters will work. I'm considering trying on one of the posts of my lean-to. The pole mount is probably too short to help much. This is an old picture, but that far post is north. About 14' high. Thoughts?

View attachment 822810

I would start by getting up the ladder at the eave with your phone and checking first. (I know, I know, broken record. But really, it is your friend.)

I used an eave mount Amazon.com

and it has worked well for me. I go to a fair amount of effort not to puncture a metal wall. Sealing metal is such an issue.

The Starlink Ethernet adapter is straightforward to set up, just be very nice to all of the cables. No sharp bends and no pulling on them. Gentle is the keyword here.

Remember you probably want Starlink on the southern end of your space/roof to give it the best view of the Northern sky.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Torvy]

Thanks. I wouldn't mess with mount on metal either...i hoped maybe the engineers had a non penetrating mount. So, you remove dish from the feet for that mount? It is cheaper than the Starlink ones. I may have to order the longer cable, for southern post, but your reasoning is spot on. House is north, so cables could be shorter, oh well. I got on the ladder on the other side of the building. 8% or so, but closer to trees.

 

[ponytug]

Thanks. I wouldn't mess with mount on metal either...i hoped maybe the engineers had a non penetrating mount. So, you remove dish from the feet for that mount? It is cheaper than the Starlink ones. I may have to order the longer cable, for southern post, but your reasoning is spot on. House is north, so cables could be shorter, oh well. I got on the ladder on the other side of the building. 8% or so, but closer to trees.

Yes, the feet come off. I would invest in the Starlink pole mount adapter because there is a few mm or a 0.1" of wiggle between the metric Starlink pipe and the pole mount above. I went with an extra bolt in the eave mount for about a year and then put the pole mount onto the eave mount when I needed to thread a new cable up to Dishy.

I used these "R" clamps;
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08P57N85F
They hold the Dishy cable well and a cordless drill or impact driver makes quick work of getting the cable tucked in place without stressing the cable.

On the side of our outbuilding, I tucked the Starlink router in this weatherproof enclosure, along with two vents

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L3QTZRY

and an STC-1000 temperature controller (eBay) for a ventilation fan to keep it cool.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08PNQDD3F

I used a pair of desk top cable pass throughs and some butyl caulk to make a channel large enough to thread the Dishy cable through the wall behind it either way, and leave space for power cables and Ethernet cable access, yet could be closed down enough to keep insects out. This gives us the Starlink WiFi access over a pretty large area, and makes it easy for me to check if a network issue is my router, or on the Starlink side by hopping over to the Starlink WiFi.

Yes, lots of pieces, but all pretty simple, and by no means the only way to do it.

I did look into TV and radio type antennas. However, I came to the conclusion that for me, due to high local wind speeds (100mph+ on occasion), the antennas would need a real foundation that was probably 4'x4'x4' plus of reinforced concrete, which was more than I was willing to pay before I knew how well Starlink was going to work. Plus the gear to safely work on an antenna.($$$)

All the best,

Peter

 

[Torvy]

You have me wondering if I could mount the sl pole to my lean-to rather than the recommended 'bury in concrete'. That could help get above trees and garage peak. Maybe then I can put sl router in shop and run cat 6 from adapter to the house. I may already have enough.

Really appreciate all the insight.

 

[LouNY]

Just for the heck of I went to the Starlink "store" the other day and I see they have a new roof mount, it's a inverted Y that is adjustable and just sits on the roof peak with weights to hold it secure. No screws or bolts.

 

[Torvy]

I saw those. Roof has to be flat. Most (all?) metal roofs have ridges. I like that they keep innovating though.

 

[ponytug]

I would pay attention to wind. Some areas get hurricanes/tropical storms, others tornados, and some just have high winds. I think that your Dishy will thank you if it isn't exposed to peak winds on a roof ridge. Part of the reason I went for the eave mount... the other part being better visibility there than on my ridge top. "The app is your..."

And no, clambering around on sloped metal roof tops with drops at the bottom is not my idea of a good time. It reminds me too much of being on a mountain top ice field with rocks at the bottom, with no safety line, crampons, or mountaineering axe.

All the best,

Peter

 

[ernemats]

I have a question about speed tests, on the Starlink ap. it has a speed test and then it has an advanced speed test. When I run these one right after the other there is usually a very big difference the two which should you go by. Example I just ran both speed test 37 mps advanced 125 mps download upload speed 14 and 17mps

 

[ponytug]

I have a question about speed tests, on the Starlink ap. it has a speed test and then it has an advanced speed test. When I run these one right after the other there is usually a very big difference the two which should you go by. Example I just ran both speed test 37 mps advanced 125 mps download upload speed 14 and 17mps

Yes, I have also noticed it often enough to think it is real. In my experience, it isn't just speed tests. With multiple downloads, the first is slower than the subsequent ones.

My hunch is that Starlink uses some sort of dynamic bandwidth allocation. So, if we are puttering around on TBN not using much more than a few Mbits/s of total bandwidth, it will allocate a bandwidth block of, say several times that, 10Mbits/s. When we fire up a speed test, the system gets caught out, and takes a minute or so to respond, before it has enough allocated to our link to run at full speed. So the second test is faster. I have run a speed test sequentially on different speed test sites, and the effect is the same, so Starlink isn't just buffering up one site.

I have also noticed that the Starlink system seems to take a while to drift down to the lower bandwidth allocation. YMMV.

All the best,

Peter

 

[BigBlue1]

Hey, guys, I am very interested in the reliability issues. I teach online, so I cannot have my Internet service go down for even a second. How often do you get old is it and how long do they last?

I'd have to say that Starlink has been more reliable than pretty much any ISP I've ever had, and I've been around a long time. Other than a couple full system outages that everyone has experienced and maybe 3 times in 2.5 years where heavy rain or snow faded the signal it just works. I'm in IT and WFH. I'm online via VPN to my company all the time. In fact, usuall the VPN stays connected for as many days as it takes for their side to boot me off for hitting max online time (10 days?). My wife also is WFH. I'm on Teams/WebEx/Zoom meetings at least 50% of the day with no video, sharing or audio issues.

Your mileage will vary if you have any obstructions to your dish. But if you have a spot where the dish is unobstructed you should have very reliable Internet service.

 

[Torvy]

We are due for some rain tomorrow. My neighbor expects I'll lose signal. When we had DTV years ago it would be bad during the worst storms, but largely a non- issue. Tech has improved. I think I may bet him a cold Modelo.

 

[Fallon]

We are due for some rain tomorrow. My neighbor expects I'll lose signal. When we had DTV years ago it would be bad during the worst storms, but largely a non- issue. Tech has improved. I think I may bet him a cold Modelo.

It's not so much the tech but the frequency & power levels. Higher frequencies have more bandwidth but are much easier to block with any walls or moisture. You can overcome that with more power in some cases. But more power means more interference wit other similar devices. Satellites, especially smaller ones like Starlink are limited on solar panels & power.

 

[ponytug]

It's not so much the tech but the frequency & power levels. Higher frequencies have more bandwidth but are much easier to block with any walls or moisture. You can overcome that with more power in some cases. But more power means more interference wit other similar devices. Satellites, especially smaller ones like Starlink are limited on solar panels & power.

Yes, frequency is everything for signal loss, but the specific frequency in question does matter, not just higher is worse. Yes, power does also matter, but if you are trying stuff power into a major water absorption band, it doesn't matter how much power you have.

In practice it takes much higher rainfall rates to slow/stop Starlink compared to other satellite systems. Remember that the Starlink satellites pass overhead quickly so your system is scanning the whole sky pretty rapidly, which makes the impact of any given storm cell lower, because Starlink continously monitors signal power, it switches to satellites not behind / above the cell automatically. That makes for better signal automatically.

To me the actual service is the real bottom line. If you aren't at the coasts, it looks like 1"/hr or more seems to be where people start to have issues. That is a more than a fair amount of rain. Of course, thunderstorms overhead can have a lot of stored water, so it is not an absolute rule.

All the best,

Peter

 

[check]

I'd have to say that Starlink has been more reliable than pretty much any ISP I've ever had, and I've been around a long time. Other than a couple full system outages that everyone has experienced and maybe 3 times in 2.5 years where heavy rain or snow faded the signal it just works. I'm in IT and WFH. I'm online via VPN to my company all the time. In fact, usuall the VPN stays connected for as many days as it takes for their side to boot me off for hitting max online time (10 days?). My wife also is WFH. I'm on Teams/WebEx/Zoom meetings at least 50% of the day with no video, sharing or audio issues.

Your mileage will vary if you have any obstructions to your dish. But if you have a spot where the dish is unobstructed you should have very reliable Internet service.

That is good to know, big blue, because I cannot have my lectures interrupted in the middle of them.

The starlink would actually be a back up to a local service provider here on the lake. Other that, all we have is Bell and Xplornet. And I had to cut the bell line because I’m using their conduit to put 200 amp service into it coming to my cottage. I don’t need the bell for phone service for sure, but I had it as a Wi-Fi back up.

 

[kf4uda]

Having Starlink for a year now, we have experienced 2 rain outages of around 5 minutes each. We also had the global outage that everyone else seemed to have. That lasted a little over 30 minutes. The service has surprised me at how robust it is. I think my previous Wi-Fi service was down more than it was up.

 

[LouNY]

Well I seem to have had a bit different experience then many other posters. My antenna is 100% unobstructed but many rainstorms/thunder storms do effect the service adversely. During storms I often get outages of 2 to 10 minutes. Mild rain showers do not bother but heavier storms most certainly do. I've also had outages when there was no storm here but other areas may have had them at times, I'm not positive. The service is good most of the time, I do not see the huge speeds that some claim to get but everything works good. Including streaming videos and multiple TV's at the same time.
It is better then the point to point wireless I previously had speed wise and reliability is a toss up.
All in all I'm pleased with the service and have no plan to change, during outages many times I can stream using my phone as a hotspot for a connection it certainly is not near as fast but does work most of the time.

 

[K5lwq]

I have the same experience as Lou. I have lost signal with heavy cloud cover. But for the most part it has been much more reliable than what I have had in the past! I am very happy with the service even with the peak time slow downs in my area.