I was actually surprised to get the "your Starlink is ready" email because I figured that they were focusing on non-urban areas. And if you look at their coverage map, at least in the continental US more populated areas are shown as "waitlist". I guess I got to the top of that list after being on it for 16 months.

We shall see. I was up on the roof this morning trying to figure out where the antenna should go by using their app on my iPhone, which is an interesting process. Starlink wants to see much of the sky, though with less emphasis towards the south. The best spot is pretty far from where I'd prefer to bring the cable inside, and probably beyond the length of the 75 foot cable that is the current standard. But the desired field of view looks upward enough towards the north that I can probably put the antenna fairly near the north end of the house near the peak of the roof and just keep the lilac that is growing on that end from getting too tall and blocking its northern view.

It's going to be interesting learning about it, that's for sure.

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

How about a cable amplifier? The cable company added one to my system, partly because it is split to various rooms of the house, and partly because a couple lines that run upstairs have long runs. You'd need a power source fairly near the front end of the line, though. I'm not advertising for Arris. I can't actually remember if that's what I have. I do remember having a Motorola at one time, but they replaced it a couple years ago. Mine has the single input/output and power like the one in the pic, and then runs directly into the splitter.

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Hmmmmm.....interesting.

Starlink offers a 150 foot cable, it's just not what comes in the stock kit. Until I go through the order process I won't know if they will let me swap one for the other for the delta price ($29) or if I would have to just buy the 150-footer.

I've been thinking about how to route the cable from the second best location (which is much closer to where I'd want the router in the house) and I think I can do it. I need to trade that, with a slightly more complicated mounting setup, with the the longer cable.

I also don't yet know what sort of signal is actually in that cable. There is mention of power over ethernet to power, presumably, the scan function and the snow melt function of the antenna. But I don't know what the data stream from the antenna to the router actually is (at least not yet). So I don't know if an amp like that would work.

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

I just assumed it would be coax. Our schools have ethernet powered WAPs in just about every room, and obviously the data is also sent by ethernet. Some of the runs are close to 200 ft and they stream HD content easily.

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I have Charter cable and WiFi in both condos.
It's PLENTY fast and rarely goes down. When it infrequently does go down, I hot spot my Verizon cell phone. There is a tower less than 1 mile away.
Starlink is neat and am glad it now allows rural customers high-speed internet; fortunately I don't need it as it is approximately twice the cost of my cable internet.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

It sounds like you’re well set up.

I have fallen back on hot spotting my cell phone (AT&T in my case) as well, especially during a power failure. I haven’t recently had the DSL go bad or down enough to, say, stream some TV. But it has been frustrating often enough that the availability of Starlink, plus my general fascination with the idea and the technology in it, has me just about ready to pull the trigger.

I got a “you have three days left to order or we’ll refund your deposit and drop you out of the line” email today.

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

It is much more cool to watch a Starlink satellite streak across the sky knowing you are tracking it using data that came directly from it, than it is to watch a crappy tv show that you know was bounced from some invisible geosynch satellite over 22,000 miles away.

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OP here, the fellow with the cabin in the woods.

Starlink tech has definitely evolved somewhat from the time of my beta install with the original round Dishy equipment, so there's not much relevant advice I can offer at this point. But I did find an online article about hacking the new square Dishy equipment that might be of help:
https://gist.github.com/darconeous/...1d6c43be55066ee

Hope this helps with your install.

As for us, we continue to be quite satisfied with Starlink's performance here. I can't even remember the last time it was down, speeds are quite adequate for our purposes, and so far the original round "flying saucer" Dishy 1.0 has taken everything that Canadian blizzards, thunderstorms and windstorms have thrown at it.

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John

Was CAR-ACF# S 337
Was NAR# 91049
Was SAM# 0323

Life begins when the countdown reaches zero!

Well, I got another email saying I had 24 hours to order or be refunded and I pulled the trigger late this morning. I just got an email that the initial kit has shipped and FedEx says it'll be here Saturday.

I also ordered the long cable, the pole adapter and the through-the-wall installation kit in another order, and the ethernet adapter in a third (since I forgot it on the second) and these are all showing 6/27-7/3 so they have not yet shipped.

After looking at how I'd have to route the cable from the second choice location for the antenna I concluded I'd need the long cable even for that. I was disappointed that there was no option in ordering the initial kit for substituting the longer cable. But I might as well do it right at the outset (or as soon as the long cable comes).

We had one of those "internet moments" tonight where the Century Link DSL just crashed for awhile. So of course now that it's restored, performance is screaming along: 66.6 Mbps down and 12.9 Mbps up with a ping of 10 ms. That's about as good as it gets (and it seems to be the best right after a re-connect).

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

10ms latency is awesome! I usually get around 30-50ms. I just checked this morning and it's a little better than usual at 25ms. With bandwidth, however, I do get more than I pay for.

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