Starlink Broadband

[thatsprettyshady]

Leithen said:

I think most of us are still waiting/hoping for delivery.

There are clearly coverage gaps in the satellites at the moment, but the launch schedule is busy, so it will improve.

Have a look at https://satellitemap.space and switch on "Rings" in settings to show coverage.

The reports from those who have it appear good.

The lines of satellites grouped very closely and in a straight line, are those fresh launches that need to manouver into position?

[Leithen]

thatsprettyshady said:

Leithen said:

I think most of us are still waiting/hoping for delivery.

There are clearly coverage gaps in the satellites at the moment, but the launch schedule is busy, so it will improve.

Have a look at https://satellitemap.space and switch on "Rings" in settings to show coverage.

The reports from those who have it appear good.

The lines of satellites grouped very closely and in a straight line, are those fresh launches that need to manouver into position?

Yes.

[thatsprettyshady]

Leithen said:

thatsprettyshady said:

Leithen said:

I think most of us are still waiting/hoping for delivery.

There are clearly coverage gaps in the satellites at the moment, but the launch schedule is busy, so it will improve.

Have a look at https://satellitemap.space and switch on "Rings" in settings to show coverage.

The reports from those who have it appear good.

The lines of satellites grouped very closely and in a straight line, are those fresh launches that need to manouver into position?

Yes.

Thanks

[njmchase]

Rarely a visitor to the site these days, but also a Starlink fan, currently setting up to use BT alongside - BT offer me only a very basic service and like others on here no options for anything else beyond 4G which has kept us going in lockdown, so Starlink and BT are now connected to a new Draytek 2927 router, now to move my Sophos Firewall into the mix which will sit between the Draytek and my core network.

Loving what some people have done here - really helpful guidance, but you do need to have a good understanding of networking and take it step at a time.

[Leithen]

njmchase said:

Rarely a visitor to the site these days, but also a Starlink fan, currently setting up to use BT alongside - BT offer me only a very basic service and like others on here no options for anything else beyond 4G which has kept us going in lockdown, so Starlink and BT are now connected to a new Draytek 2927 router, now to move my Sophos Firewall into the mix which will sit between the Draytek and my core network.

Loving what some people have done here - really helpful guidance, but you do need to have a good understanding of networking and take it step at a time.

Ooh interesting, where are you based?

Prepare for a deluge of draytek q’s when my Starlink arrives… :hehe

[Northernboy]

njmchase said:

Rarely a visitor to the site these days, but also a Starlink fan, currently setting up to use BT alongside - BT offer me only a very basic service and like others on here no options for anything else beyond 4G which has kept us going in lockdown, so Starlink and BT are now connected to a new Draytek 2927 router, now to move my Sophos Firewall into the mix which will sit between the Draytek and my core network.

Loving what some people have done here - really helpful guidance, but you do need to have a good understanding of networking and take it step at a time.

I’ve given up on my switch now, and just using StarLink as my primary provider.

I still can’t work out why despite StarLink being the primary WAN, mad the switch being set up to only switch when it failed, it was continuously defaulting to my slow wired broadband, so I’ve given up.

[eharding]

Northernboy said:

I’ve given up on my switch now, and just using StarLink as my primary provider.

My failover setup is pretty much redundant - no perceptible Starlink outages for weeks here. Until this morning that is, when it had a total wibble and was temporarily showing me a very pertinent thread started by you in Website Feedback which then disappeared without trace. Contemplating contacting Starlink support to complain, but suspect they'll say that there is something else at fault.

[celestequattro]

Just got my Starlink dish after a tip off from one of the tech guys at work. Used to getting 0.2 to 0.7M from BT, and very poor mobile coverage. We live in a wood so the Starlink app said "no" but I plonked it on a wall on the tripod and got 150M so all good.

The only "issue" is that I need to run the cable across our driveway, and from the FAQs you are not supposed to bury it?

Provided that I can find something strong enough to survive an Amazon delivery driver hooning over it, is there any reason why I cannot bury the cable?

Thanks.

[Northernboy]

celestequattro said:

Just got my Starlink dish after a tip off from one of the tech guys at work. Used to getting 0.2 to 0.7M from BT, and very poor mobile coverage. We live in a wood so the Starlink app said "no" but I plonked it on a wall on the tripod and got 150M so all good.

The only "issue" is that I need to run the cable across our driveway, and from the FAQs you are not supposed to bury it?

Provided that I can find something strong enough to survive an Amazon delivery driver hooning over it, is there any reason why I cannot bury the cable?

Thanks.

It seems a strange restriction. It’s just an Ethernet cable, albeit a chunky one to deliver the power that the dish needs.

I can’t see why burying it in a conduit would be any problem at all.

[xeny]

Northernboy said:

It seems a strange restriction. It’s just an Ethernet cable, albeit a chunky one to deliver the power that the dish needs.

I can’t see why burying it in a conduit would be any problem at all.

I know the dish is high power, and I'd guess the run is low voltage which means high current - are they worried about heat dissipation?

I found a good Starlink review here for anyone interested in if it is currently a good choice for them: https://www.sevarg.net/2021/06/20/so-starlink/

[Captain_Morgan]

I presume it’s because it’s hard wired at the dish end so when the dish fails you’ll have to dig up the cable to replace it.

[celestequattro]

Thanks all. Sounds like burying with enough protection from passing vehicles is a plan,

[eharding]

My Starlink cable is buried in conduit as it crosses the lawn. The bigger challenge was getting it through the wall into the house, as the - what I assume is - graphite core close to the end of the cable has quite a large diameter, requiring a GBFO SDS drill bit to get through the brickwork (the hole required being substantially larger than the graphite core, as I ran a piece of plastic tubing through the hole for the cable to sit in).

I did suggest to the Starlink chaps when we had our chat a while back that they move the core a few feet down the cable to make the masonry drilling a little easier. They did say they would be bringing out a masonry fitting kit, which I see is now available to buy via the portal - a spade bit, 25mm and 6mm bits, and Ethernet Cable Routing Tool (whatever that is) and assorted grommets, clips and sealant for £44.

From one of the original tear-down videos, I think the cable connects to the dish internally via a standard ethernet connector, but you'd need to remove some weather-sealing panels to get at it if you wanted to replace the cable, but as yet I don't think the Starlink sales system is up to just selling you another cable - I've seen reports of cases where the cable has failed the support team have just shipped out another entire dish and cable (amazing, considering how much the dishes apparently cost to produce).

[essayer]

90W is massive, why does it consume so much power?

[Northernboy]

essayer said:

90W is massive, why does it consume so much power?

It contains a heater, in case of snow, so maybe that’s the power when it’s running that.

[eharding]

Northernboy said:

essayer said:

90W is massive, why does it consume so much power?

It contains a heater, in case of snow, so maybe that’s the power when it’s running that.

I don't recall any of the dish teardowns showing dedicated heater elements? I think they just have the dish electronics do some additional 'unnecessary' idle-time processing to increased the heat dissipation if required. Conversely, iterations of the dish firmware seem to reduce general the power consumption, so I'd guess the power provision in the system was designed for the worst case scenario. One update last December seemed to reduce the power required quite markedly, as captured by someone running a long term power monitoring application:



Also, the dish has motors so that it can slew itself around, and it's not particularly light (about 5 kilos), so they would need to allow for the current draw for those motors (it only seems to slew when setting itself up though).

[essayer]

eharding said:

I don't recall any of the dish teardowns showing dedicated heater elements? I think they just have the dish electronics do some additional 'unnecessary' idle-time processing to increased the heat dissipation if required.

dogecoin?

40w is a bit better I guess if it has active electronics

[Northernboy]

eharding said:

I don't recall any of the dish teardowns showing dedicated heater elements? I think they just have the dish electronics do some additional 'unnecessary' idle-time processing to increased the heat dissipation if required. Conversely, iterations of the dish firmware seem to reduce general the power consumption, so I'd guess the power provision in the system was designed for the worst case scenario. One update last December seemed to reduce the power required quite markedly, as captured by someone running a long term power monitoring application:



Also, the dish has motors so that it can slew itself around, and it's not particularly light (about 5 kilos), so they would need to allow for the current draw for those motors (it only seems to slew when setting itself up though).

Yes, I've not noticed mine ever pointing in any other directions, and I think that the heating is just running the processor to warm things up.

[eharding]

essayer said:

dogecoin?

Actually, with Musk's dalliances with crypto, a conspiracy theory around his having a hidden mining rig in every Starlink dish and getting the punters to pay for the electricity is a gem.

[e-honda]

eharding said:

Actually, with Musk's dalliances with crypto, a conspiracy theory around his having a hidden mining rig in every Starlink dish and getting the punters to pay for the electricity is a gem.

Yes with that amount of processing power it could be netting him several dollars maybe even 10s of dollars a year