Starlink

[dtfeld]

Getting jealous of your speeds, and I've been considering upgrading my Peplink MAX BR1-MK2 to either a MAX BR1 Pro 5G or CAT20 (probably not just yet...too many changes coming in the 5G realm). MobileMustHave has a review that starts to discuss how to integrate Starlink with these 2 new routers. They start to discuss Dishy at the 11:40 min mark.

 

[Skybolt]

Mine was left on all week and when I got to the boat the speed was horrible. I put it in storage mode, then unplugged it for 10 minutes, rebooted and it reset the dish to flat mode for like 10 mins then slowly tilted to face slightly north and my speed came back to 130. Not sure why but that seemed to fix it. I then shut it down for 5 hours while I ran the cable and installed the new mount, went through the same process and she is all good again. Here is the reading I just got while typing this reply. Never seen this fast before
View attachment 132922

So I have been testing this all day all while trying to watch the Daytona 400 ... Rather then explain all of the failures today and say thank goodness for the Peplink with the cell contract, I will say what I learned.

After my post this morning I rebooted the SL again and only got 2.3Mbps. I was getting degraded service messages and out of service area messages, then a few peak service messages. Played around all day with it and never got any better service to speak of. The dish definitely does not track the satellites even when it looses service and you must reboot the SL. I also tried stowing/un-stowing it without success. I tried stowing then changing locations and direction by a few miles and un-stowing did not resume service or track satellites. The only way to resume service was to reboot the SL. Ok, not the worst thing. After service was restored I still only got 2.3Mbps. Just before writing this post I checked my speed again still didn't change so I remotely rebooted the SL and got 470Mbps and still doing speed test's they are way into the 300's. Crazy, but it seems if you get any degraded service messages rebooting may resolve the issue.

Grant, I also had it on since Wed. of this week and after being in one place for 24hrs it seemed to pick up speed like what you saw. Not sure if a service outage reestablishes a new connection that then allows for faster service or not, but from what I have read something to that affect does happen. I believe that if service becomes degraded rebooting may help the speed increase. Rebooting helped to recover speed twice today, not enough to say whether or not it was a coincidence or not but this is what I have experienced.

 

[Skybolt]

Getting jealous of your speeds, and I've been considering upgrading my Peplink MAX BR1-MK2 to either a MAX BR1 Pro 5G or CAT20 (probably not just yet...too many changes coming in the 5G realm). MobileMustHave has a review that starts to discuss how to integrate Starlink with these 2 new routers. They start to discuss Dishy at the 11:40 min mark.

My plan is to use this with the Peplink and not remove it like I had thought. After testing with this today having the ability to fail-over is really nice, even if only to WiFi. The plan is to connect the SL to the Wan port and if that link goes down then the WiFi can be used. I do plan on canceling the cell plan at some point in the next month.

I was going to upgrade mine to the 5G model before the SL became an option. If you have great cell service in and around your area then I would stick with what works. It's nice to be able to stream music while cruising. Not sure SL in it's current configuration will ever be able to do that even if the motors are pulled out and the array a fixed flat pointing directly up.

 

[Skybolt]

@ocgrant From the FB page on Starlink someone put this into a 24" KVH dish - "Installed starlink for RV in a 24” KVH spare dome"

Quick search pulled up these domes that could be re-painted and possibly used at around $300. https://www.ebay.com/p/27029796482 New ones can cost upwards of a $1000 or more.

This might be an option down the road.

 

[ocgrant]

@ocgrant From the FB page on Starlink someone put this into a 24" KVH dish - "Installed starlink for RV in a 24” KVH spare dome"

Quick search pulled up these domes that could be re-painted and possibly used at around $300. https://www.ebay.com/p/27029796482 New ones can cost upwards of a $1000 or more.

This might be an option down the road.


View attachment 132968 View attachment 132969

Like the idea if we have to keep the “motor feature” long term. Those on eBay are just covers and don't include the base. I am hoping the flat surface mount continues to take shape and becomes effective. I do wonder what does it do to the signal?

 

[ocgrant]

I wish someone would come with an “in app” hack to make the dishy go flat and stay there. I personally would rather see storage mode go flat as it has the least windage in my mind.

 

[Skybolt]

Like the idea if we have to keep the “motor feature” long term. Those on eBay are just covers and don't include the base. I am hoping the flat surface mount continues to take shape and becomes effective. I do wonder what does it do to the signal?

Yes most were, but there were a few with bases as well.

From what I saw this past weekend lying flat would allow the SL to keep it's signal better while the boat is moving or swinging at anchor. I am guess there will be a motorized dish of sorts at sometime in the near future made by Starlink.

But yes having the dish lay flat is the most useable state at this point. Until doing that you need do a software reboot when you get to where you are going, but that doesn't help while at anchor.

 

[ocgrant]

I wonder if we do the “unplug” motor mod but actually install a switch to interrupt the “unpack” from coming out of storage mode when it is flat. This way when on the hook you should be fine but get back to the slip and reset to get the tilt back?

 

[alnav]

Starlink's satellites until recently have been on orbits of about 50 degrees or a little east of northeast. They are just starting to launch "Shell 3" whose orbits will be about 100 degrees or a very small distance south of east. I am guessing this may make a big difference on dish position which is only a rough placement to start with. The dish may want to go flat on its own. Pure speculation on my part but based on the launch performance to date this year, they may get Shell 3 in position pretty quickly. I'm waiting to permanently mount mine until spring in any event which has more to do with trying to get a tech to go up on my hardtop but also may allow for better placement or configuration as the system evolves.

 

[ocgrant]

Starlink's satellites until recently have been on orbits of about 50 degrees or a little east of north. They are just starting to launch "Shell 3" whose orbits will be about 100 degrees or a little south of east. I am guessing this may make a big difference on dish position which is only a rough placement to start with. The dish may want to go flat on its own. Pure speculation on my part but based on the launch performance to date this year, they may get Shell 3 in position pretty quickly. I'm waiting to permanently mount mine until spring.

Interesting…. Where did you find this info? I would love to read about it and learn more.

 

[ttmott]

So I have been testing this all day all while trying to watch the Daytona 400 ... Rather then explain all of the failures today and say thank goodness for the Peplink with the cell contract, I will say what I learned.

After my post this morning I rebooted the SL again and only got 2.3Mbps. I was getting degraded service messages and out of service area messages, then a few peak service messages. Played around all day with it and never got any better service to speak of. The dish definitely does not track the satellites even when it looses service and you must reboot the SL. I also tried stowing/un-stowing it without success. I tried stowing then changing locations and direction by a few miles and un-stowing did not resume service or track satellites. The only way to resume service was to reboot the SL. Ok, not the worst thing. After service was restored I still only got 2.3Mbps. Just before writing this post I checked my speed again still didn't change so I remotely rebooted the SL and got 470Mbps and still doing speed test's they are way into the 300's. Crazy, but it seems if you get any degraded service messages rebooting may resolve the issue.


View attachment 132943 View attachment 132944


Grant, I also had it on since Wed. of this week and after being in one place for 24hrs it seemed to pick up speed like what you saw. Not sure if a service outage reestablishes a new connection that then allows for faster service or not, but from what I have read something to that affect does happen. I believe that if service becomes degraded rebooting may help the speed increase. Rebooting helped to recover speed twice today, not enough to say whether or not it was a coincidence or not but this is what I have experienced.

I wonder what the density of satellites are over you. As satellites pass there may be degraded coverage or bandwidth if another isn't there also or probably better said enough contiguous coverage. The spacecraft do not dwell over an area; they are all orbiting.

 

[Skybolt]

I wonder what the density of satellites are over you. As satellites pass there may be degraded coverage or bandwidth if another isn't there also or probably better said enough contiguous coverage. The spacecraft do not dwell over an area; they are all orbiting.

Agree and according to what I have read there is a new satellite every 4 minutes or so in view to continue service. I think the issue is what Al was speaking too in that you need to re-connect to gain better service or your current connection my get degraded because of out of service area coverage. I don't think it has anything to do with actual coverage. It seems a software reboot (or two) will reinstate to a good service level.

According to the coverage page of Starlink my area (Chesapeake Bay) has no service coverage, but when tracked via https://starlink.sx/ a third party shows plenty of coverage at 100%. Grant's area has stated coverage by Starlink, so I wonder if they aren't playing games a bit for one reason or another.

I was also reading this morning about cell coverage with Starlink and at times possible Mbps would be 2Mbps and I am seeing just that. Also this area isn't really open as a service area just yet and wonder if it isn't a test area for this. Just looking at possibilities, but for the most part Mbps are way above 200 most of the time. it seems at times of peak converge I get this drastic slow down.

 

[alnav]

Agree and according to what I have read there is a new satellite every 4 minutes or so in view to continue service. I think the issue is what Al was speaking too in that you need to re-connect to gain better service or your current connection my get degraded because of out of service area coverage. I don't think it has anything to do with actual coverage. It seems a software reboot (or two) will reinstate to a good service level.

According to the coverage page of Starlink my area (Chesapeake Bay) has no service coverage, but when tracked via https://starlink.sx/ a third party shows plenty of coverage at 100%. Grant's area has stated coverage by Starlink, so I wonder if they aren't playing games a bit for one reason or another.

I was also reading this morning about cell coverage with Starlink and at times possible Mbps would be 2Mbps and I am seeing just that. Also this area isn't really open as a service area just yet and wonder if it isn't a test area for this. Just looking at possibilities, but for the most part Mbps are way above 200 most of the time. it seems at times of peak converge I get this drastic slow down.


View attachment 133014

If you zoom out the starling.sx simulation, it shows that satellites we might be using in our area are as far away as over Detroit, Cleveland and Myrtle Beach. So, a huge area with a lot of people. Florida's mapping, on the other hand has an awful lot of coverage that's over water or sparsely populated islands.
There was another 50+ satellite Falcon launch on Saturday night. Hopefully capacity will get better when those and other recently-launched satellites go operational. On https://satellitemap.space you can see ten or more "trains" of recently launched satellites heading for thier orbits, a process I understand takes several weeks.

 

[alnav]

Interesting…. Where did you find this info? I would love to read about it and learn more.

Quite honestly, Wikipedia is a good place to start in this case. Starlink apparently doesn't like to divulge much openly, so most sources seem to reference FCC and other regulatory filings they are forced to submit.

 

[Skybolt]

If you zoom out the starling.sx simulation, it shows that satellites we might be using in our area are as far away as over Detroit, Cleveland and Myrtle Beach. So, a huge area with a lot of people. Florida's mapping, on the other hand has an awful lot of coverage that's over water or sparsely populated islands.
There was another 50+ satellite Falcon launch on Saturday night. Hopefully capacity will get better when those and other recently-launched satellites go operational. On https://satellitemap.space you can see ten or more "trains" of recently launched satellites heading for thier orbits, a process I understand takes several weeks.

Yeah I had zoomed in to show the sat lines better or so I thought. But it's crazy how those lines don't follow the orbiting sat's on this map https://satellitemap.space/ It's strange how what seem available on that map doesn't follow the tracking map (.sx). I guess not all of the orbiting sat's are available or the maps don't mean what dishy can connect to.

 

[ttmott]

Naturally, dishy's beam width is very narrow or in our marine VHF antenna terms a high Db. It would have to be narrow in order for such low transmit power to work at such long distances regardless phased array or not. Consequently, it is important dishy points to the highest density of satellite coverage at a point in space. So, it appears that the pointing mechanism via periodic SW updates and it's location knows where to point the array for best bandwidth and coverage at that location. As more and more satellites populate an area SW updates will probably re-calibrate the pointing to optimize. So, disabling the pointing mechanism brings an issue that obtaining reliable high-speed data is at risk; that is, until the Starlink constellation is fully populated. Based upon this I think that inputting the most accurate system location is important for reliable operation. And, until the constellation is more complete mobile operation will be hit and miss.

Also, it seems the hexagons on the various maps are simply approved operational areas and don't necessarily correlate with satellite coverage or density. I wouldn't say that being inside of a particular hexagon really means nothing other than Starlink has approval to operate there. The use of the hexagon shape is simply because a hexagon matrix geometrically conforms to a sphere.

 

[Skybolt]

@ocgrant Over at THT they are using the KVH HD7 dome for that project.

This site has domes in stock, they just don't have prices listed.
http://www.starboardmarineny.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1376

From what I have read the dish and stand fit inside the HD7 dome. Think it is a no brainer to use this to mount it.
I have an inquiry in for the price.

 

[ocgrant]

@ocgrant Over at THT they are using the KVH HD7 dome for that project.

This site has domes in stock, they just don't have prices listed.
http://www.starboardmarineny.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1376

From what I have read the dish and stand fit inside the HD7 dome. Think it is a no brainer to use this to mount it.
I have an inquiry in for the price.

So my buddies over at Max Marine Electronics are actually building a kit. They have a dome supplier and working on it now. Should have something soon. I was told to give Max a call to discuss. I still feel it is too soon to make that decision. I think everything we are doing now is subject to change as the sat count grows and the orbits change. That is why I am making everything work but temporary mounting and minimum modification to the boat. If SL stays with this dish and the system goes flat and works while moving then the dome idea is fine, or who is to say the flat flush mount starts to be the choice. Either way we have to see how this plays out. I think waiting is the best choice right now.

 

[Skybolt]

So my buddies over at Max Marine Electronics are actually building a kit. They have a dome supplier and working on it now. Should have something soon. I was told to give Max a call to discuss. I still feel it is too soon to make that decision. I think everything we are doing now is subject to change as the sat count grows and the orbits change. That is why I am making everything work but temporary mounting and minimum modification to the boat. If SL stays with this dish and the system goes flat and works while moving then the dome idea is fine, or who is to say the flat flush mount starts to be the choice. Either way we have to see how this plays out. I think waiting is the best choice right now.

I agree on things are going to evolve. But right now they are selling two square dishes for marine use for $10K and $5K a month for service. That is never going to be an option for most of us. Do I think there will be a mobility version, yes, and they are working on it already. But what are they going to charge for it? We will see. KVH get's 12-16K for their dish, SL will probably keep to their 10K or there about's. And KVh's service is somewhat expensive for very little bandwidth as in thousands a month. That almost justifies SL's marine price for unlimited iNet service.

If I can or Max Marine can make a new housing for this that looks nice on a boat then why wait. The original v1 dish still works as designed. So there is no reason to think the v2 that we have will not work. Will be nice to make it look right though.

 

[ttmott]

I agree on things are going to evolve. But right now they are selling two square dishes for marine use for $10K and $5K a month for service. That is never going to be an option for most of us. Do I think there will be a mobility version, yes, and they are working on it already. But what are they going to charge for it? We will see. KVH get's 12-16K for their dish, SL will probably keep to their 10K or there about's. And KVh's service is somewhat expensive for very little bandwidth as in thousands a month. That almost justifies SL's marine price for unlimited iNet service.

If I can or Max Marine can make a new housing for this that looks nice on a boat then why wait. The original v1 dish still works as designed. So there is no reason to think the v2 that we have will not work. Will be nice to make it look right though.

Orlando - whatever Maxmarine is doing with the domes the issue with coverage and stable signal is going to continue until the satellite constellation has filled the gaps. The objective is to have an array lay flat pointing up and always see a satellite. The dish pointing motors, I think, are a temporary feature that will go away. In Florida that objective seems to still be several years away. It seems the dual array marine application is to look in two different locations at the same time which will always have a spacecraft in view; a temporary fix. I can't seem to find any data on how and when Sx are populating the constellation. For me this is still a bit of a novelty, so I'll wait for a bit.