The Official, Super Deluxe, Mega BS Starlink Thread

For your RV/portable truck set ups what are you guys using to power Starlink? I have a Jackery 1000 fully charged that I ran an ICECO 45L fridge at 34*F and the Starlink. I forgot to turn off the Starlink after going to bed and found that the Jackery was fully drained by morning. It was in the mid-30s at night so the fridge wasn't trying too hard. I didn't realize how much power Starlink uses.

Not sure I want a solar set up because I'm usually driving throughout the day and the panels would never be in an ideal location to charge batteries or the Jackery. And I'm in the PNW where sunlight isn't always available.

 

My OG round dish draws a constant 8.5amps from my batteries and up to 12ish when booting up and acquiring signal. A fair bit of that is efficiency loss converting the 12v to 120v the dish requires. Your Jackery only has enough power for about 5 hours of run time.

 

I think my Starlink dish might’ve been broken the other night in heavy winds. I came out this morning and it was tilted down like it was stowed and I figured I just didn’t remember stowing it. Powered it up and Dishy tilted up flat and then just spun in a circle a good ten times before stopping. It’s working but won’t tilt down to face north like usual and the entire dish feels wobbly compared to normal. When I stow it the dish tilts back down and then spins around and around.

Sped up to 2x speed -




Edit: I think they’re sending me a new kit? Not entirely clear what happened but my account shows a new no-charge order for a kit. Two minutes from when I submitted the question via customer service and they responded saying everything is working and shipped a new kit?

 

That's a bit weird but 1) good you're getting a new kit for free and 2) sorry you're losing the Gen 1 round dishy. Maybe you could make a Frankenstein by mashing the two together

Unrelated, since I'm in a low density area, my bill was dropped to $90 a month but on the invoice it's described as 'Starlink Subscription - Discounted'. I'm wondering what the invoice shows for those who have to pay the extra amount?

 

Can’t complain about Starlink customer service at all.

 

As far as I can tell I now have two working dishes on the same account and still pay the same price. I had them both up and running side-by-side earlier.

 

Did your round dish stop spinning?

 

It spins for a few minutes and then stops but remains facing flat to the sky. It still gets signal like that though. The motor is completely stripped out and the dish will flop back vertical like it’s stowed if the wind hits it from the right angle.

 

For some, this might seem really basic but for me, it was an epiphany.

Long story short, a Starlink Mesh with a Starlink ethernet adapter connected which is then connected to a gigabit switch can serve as a remote wireless access point to hardwire devices.

The full story:
Due to dish placement issues, I had to set up my Starlink router away from my existing router for the DSL service. I have the printer & NAS connected to the DSL router. I was thinking of a way to hardwire the two to Starlink and had the epiphany as described in the first paragraph. All are now on the Starlink network and working twice as fast as before.

Thanks for reading

 

Starlink tracks users by both their dish and router evidently. I let a guy at work borrow my round dish because he crushed the cable going to his dish. His router, my dish and we can both see his network status in our apps.

 

awesome speeds, but why in the world is your fiber service not symmetrical speeds? That's one of the biggest advantages of fiber

 

Maybe because it’s a G-PON network? I honestly don’t know.

 

Got this off Reddit. Sounds plausible:

So there is a misconception with the Heat mode. SL engineers are doing what all engineers do try to make more with less. SL sends more power to the dish when its in heat mode. The electricity running through semiconductors generates heat and that heat is what melts snow. This is how a Tesla keeps the battery pack warm. This method is dramatically cheaper then adding a dedicated heater. Some other examples of double dipping something for additional features is airplanes. The leading edges of a planes are heated to prevent ice. Most use a system called "bleed air"...aka they run exhaust through the edges the heat melts the ice. Its win win..no real additional components required. Another is a Turbo on a car. Its free energy thats going out the exhaust. Recycling it boosts you other then some components its free energy.

It also comes on during the rain to punch through the atmosphere. When its raining you literally have a Lake Mead over your head. Water defracts and absorbs RF energy. You just can't see it. So to have a stronger lock it boosts the power. That is expressed on your app as "Heating". Water/Snow is very difficult on RF communications. Take the far end of the spectrum..Subs. They use a VLF very low frequency to communicate with them underwater and its very very limited in the data that can be sent. The ocean absorbs all the energy.

Nothing to worry about or see. The reason there is a off switch is because when your SL is on "Heat" it actually consumes a fair amount of power. Many wanna use this device boondocking in a RV or in a area with no power but hooked up to a external battery.

A wifi router for instance pulls 5-20 watts..hardly anything at all. SL pulls closer to 100 watts I believe. Phased Array dishs will always pull more power. Its actually a testimony to humanities engineering that you have something that sophisticated in your house.

 

Not sure if you guys have seen, but if you’re in a waitlisted area with a residential dish, you can select residential service now. It’s switched over for some folks, others are waiting t for the first week of the month to pass (mine updates 5/7).

 

Switching from RV to residential or just switching home addresses into a wait list area?

 

I’m switching from RV -> Residential. I have a Residential dish in a waitlisted area, so ymmv.

 

Standard Dishy now available at Home Depot. Limit = 2

https://www.homedepot.com/p/STARLIN...d-Low-Latency-Internet-02533005-510/325669273

 

Page for me says "Not available in North Carolina."

 

I guess it has to do with the cells being active in a particular area.

I’m wondering how this will impact overcrowded cells?

 

I think it was said here, but does location determine monthly price? Yours shows $90, but I checked my area a couple months ago and think it was $120 a month.