Starlink Public Beta About to Happen?!?!

I would imagine the unit itself can keep itself warm in cold temperatures, assuming it has power. But the upper limit of 122* seems very easy to hit on a roof in the summer anywhere south of Ohio. I wonder if people have tried putting fans or forced air underneath it for summer operation. Maybe even water lines epoxied to the underside.

Why should anyone have to do that? You think the avg person wants to pay 500 for a dish and have to engineer an industrial cooling solution on top of that?

Just build the damn transmitter in a separate case and run some coax cable to it. Done.

Damn overpaid under thinking Starlink engineers.
 
It doesn't take much to block a starlink signal. Just think about the huge disparity in wall penetration between 2.4ghz and 5ghz wifi. well starlink uses frequencies as high as 40Ghz. Unfortunately you pretty much need line of sight at that frequency. Not far from the semi-failed wigig standard that uses 60Ghz and can't even penetrate a cubicle wall.
hmm. well they make radomes for 60ghz p2p antennas and radar equipment. so i think it should be possible to find a good material.
 
Why should anyone have to do that? You think the avg person wants to pay 500 for a dish and have to engineer an industrial cooling solution on top of that?

Just build the damn transmitter in a separate case and run some coax cable to it. Done.

Damn overpaid under thinking Starlink engineers.
Well, it's a phased array, so I image you would have to run as many coax cables as there are elements on the antenna, and each coax would have to be length matched.

https://hackaday.com/2020/11/25/literally-tearing-apart-a-spacex-starlink-antenna/

maybe more than 100 coax cables? I'm not a radio guy so this is conjecture on my part.
 
Why should anyone have to do that? You think the avg person wants to pay 500 for a dish and have to engineer an industrial cooling solution on top of that?

Just build the damn transmitter in a separate case and run some coax cable to it. Done.

Damn overpaid under thinking Starlink engineers.
Overpaid and under thinking? A receiver, is not the same as a transmitter/receiver (transceiver). A transmitter/receiver is not the same a satellite tracking transmitter/receiver. Next to military electronics, that I use to work on, I don't know of any other consumer solutions that do the same thing. We aren't talking about receiving a broadcast from transmission antennas 30 miles away.
 
Overpaid and under thinking? A receiver, is not the same as a transmitter/receiver (transceiver). A transmitter/receiver is not the same a satellite tracking transmitter/receiver. Next to military electronics, that I use to work on, I don't know of any other consumer solutions that do the same thing. We aren't talking about receiving a broadcast from transmission antennas 30 miles away.

I am a licensed Ham Radio operator so RF is my second language plus I did it in the military. It is not that hard.

The coordinates for moving the dish can be sent to the dish and all the dish has to do is move to the designated x,y,z coords after it is calibrated.

The transceiver can be anywhere you want it to be.

Here is a picture to help you digest this simplicity that I speak of

This is a FlexRadio 6400M High Frequency Band Transceiver
It is feeding a 32 foot Steppir Big IR Mk II Vertical Antenna in the woods about 100 feet away from my radio.

This antenna is good from 3.5mhz to 50mhz frequency - Same with the Transceiver pictured.

If I can do this with HAM Radio Equipment surely anyone can do this with a simple dish (Antenna), a few servos with some XYZ coords, and a remote little tiny tranciever that sits in your house with a little cooling fan in it. No need to pack all that shit into a dish.

Its not that hard.

Radio Transmitter and Reciever
20220129_173839.jpg


Vertical HF Antenna in the forest on my property

20220129_173923.jpg


HAMS build stuff like this all the time. Its not hard to do and these people are doing it on shoestring budgets with soldering irons.

Yes this is large and its for working satellites, yes we HAMs have CubeSats orbiting right now that we can work UHF and VHF on and work them as long range repeaters. We can even work the ISS as well.



We can even shoot high power VHF at the moon and bounce it off the moon and talk to other HAMs on the other side of the Earth but here is another example of a dude who built this using soldering irons and raspberry Pis. I am sure he doesn't have a $35 Billion development budget.
 
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I am a licensed Ham Radio operator so RF is my second language plus I did it in the military. It is not that hard.

The coordinates for moving the dish can be sent to the dish and all the dish has to do is move to the designated x,y,z coords after it is calibrated.

The transceiver can be anywhere you want it to be.

Here is a picture to help you digest this simplicity that I speak of

This is a FlexRadio 6400M High Frequency Band Transceiver
It is feeding a 32 foot Steppir Big IR Mk II Vertical Antenna in the woods about 100 feet away from my radio.

This antenna is good from 3.5mhz to 50mhz frequency - Same with the Transceiver pictured.

If I can do this with HAM Radio Equipment surely anyone can do this with a simple dish (Antenna), a few servos with some XYZ coords, and a remote little tiny tranciever that sits in your house with a little cooling fan in it. No need to pack all that shit into a dish.

Its not that hard.

Radio Transmitter and Reciever
View attachment 438343

Vertical HF Antenna in the forest on my property

View attachment 438344

HAMS build stuff like this all the time. Its not hard to do and these people are doing it on shoestring budgets with soldering irons.

Yes this is large and its for working satellites, yes we HAMs have CubeSats orbiting right now that we can work UHF and VHF on and work them as long range repeaters. We can even work the ISS as well.



We can even shoot high power VHF at the moon and bounce it off the moon and talk to other HAMs on the other side of the Earth but here is another example of a dude who built this using soldering irons and raspberry Pis. I am sure he doesn't have a $35 Billion development budget.

Greetings Fellow HAM. Preach it. :D
 
Well, it's a phased array, so I image you would have to run as many coax cables as there are elements on the antenna, and each coax would have to be length matched.

https://hackaday.com/2020/11/25/literally-tearing-apart-a-spacex-starlink-antenna/

maybe more than 100 coax cables? I'm not a radio guy so this is conjecture on my part.
Phased Array can be controlled locally in the dish. The wave guides are electromagnetic. The RF is still generated and sent to the backplane of the antenna. The heat generated by the transceiver again can be produced in a remote cabinet that is cooled. But I am not a phased array engineer even though we exclusively used said technology in the USN on the Aegis weapons system in the destroyer and cruiser fleet. Because of the MASSIVE size of the phased array dishes on the ships there were dedicated transmitters honeycombed into the dish. On a small size single frequency solution the RF can be generated remotely. But then again Star Link has a reason for why they are doing what they are doing. I am sure they have very extremely knowledgeable RF engineers that can blow all of our minds in expertise working for them and this is a compromise they had to make. Cram it all in a single solution product such as a dish that all the customer needs to do is hook up power and ethernet. I do not know the reason and thats fine.

But this doesn't change the fact that we customers should not have to engineer a cooling solution for a product that we are supposed to just open, slap on a mount, screw into our roof, and get on the internet with. It would be like buying a brand new car but oh wait "you have to go home and engineer a fuel delivery systems because the car wont run right or at all" but they sold it this way anyways. Its not right and it shouldn't have to be done.
 
Phased Array can be controlled locally in the dish. The wave guides are electromagnetic. The RF is still generated and sent to the backplane of the antenna. The heat generated by the transceiver again can be produced in a remote cabinet that is cooled. But I am not a phased array engineer even though we exclusively used said technology in the USN on the Aegis weapons system in the destroyer and cruiser fleet. Because of the MASSIVE size of the phased array dishes on the ships there were dedicated transmitters honeycombed into the dish. On a small size single frequency solution the RF can be generated remotely. But then again Star Link has a reason for why they are doing what they are doing. I am sure they have very extremely knowledgeable RF engineers that can blow all of our minds in expertise working for them and this is a compromise they had to make. Cram it all in a single solution product such as a dish that all the customer needs to do is hook up power and ethernet. I do not know the reason and thats fine.

But this doesn't change the fact that we customers should not have to engineer a cooling solution for a product that we are supposed to just open, slap on a mount, screw into our roof, and get on the internet with. It would be like buying a brand new car but oh wait "you have to go home and engineer a fuel delivery systems because the car wont run right or at all" but they sold it this way anyways. Its not right and it shouldn't have to be done.
agreed. i meant that if the phased array chips are the reason for the max temp then you would need to move those off the antennas, and then 1 coax cable is probably not enough. but if thats not the limitation then definitely move the transceiver off. or get chips rated for higher temps to begin with.
 
I am a licensed Ham Radio operator so RF is my second language plus I did it in the military. It is not that hard.

The coordinates for moving the dish can be sent to the dish and all the dish has to do is move to the designated x,y,z coords after it is calibrated.

The transceiver can be anywhere you want it to be.

Here is a picture to help you digest this simplicity that I speak of

This is a FlexRadio 6400M High Frequency Band Transceiver
It is feeding a 32 foot Steppir Big IR Mk II Vertical Antenna in the woods about 100 feet away from my radio.

This antenna is good from 3.5mhz to 50mhz frequency - Same with the Transceiver pictured.

If I can do this with HAM Radio Equipment surely anyone can do this with a simple dish (Antenna), a few servos with some XYZ coords, and a remote little tiny tranciever that sits in your house with a little cooling fan in it. No need to pack all that shit into a dish.

Its not that hard.

Radio Transmitter and Reciever
View attachment 438343

Vertical HF Antenna in the forest on my property

View attachment 438344

HAMS build stuff like this all the time. Its not hard to do and these people are doing it on shoestring budgets with soldering irons.

Yes this is large and its for working satellites, yes we HAMs have CubeSats orbiting right now that we can work UHF and VHF on and work them as long range repeaters. We can even work the ISS as well.



We can even shoot high power VHF at the moon and bounce it off the moon and talk to other HAMs on the other side of the Earth but here is another example of a dude who built this using soldering irons and raspberry Pis. I am sure he doesn't have a $35 Billion development budget.

HF doesn't equal microwaves. Whip antennas do not equal microwave arrays. Frequencies have different lengths, which require different equipment. Antenna theory goes way past ham radio. There are reasons why. For one, starlink is not geostationary. Two, the receiver has more reception needs, because of the switching from the low earth orbit satellites that are not geostationary. Being able to transition seamlessly between satellites isn't as simple as a horn antenna... and more so when they are not... geostationary.
 
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HF doesn't equal microwaves. Whip antennas do not equal microwave arrays. Frequencies have different lengths, which require different equipment. Antenna theory goes way past ham radio. There are reasons why. For one, starlink is not geostationary. Two, the receiver has more reception needs, because of the switching from the low earth orbit satellites that are not geostationary. Being able to transition seamlessly between satellites isn't as simple as a horn antenna... and more so when they are not... geostationary.
Then you missed my point. I have provided my input.
 
I missed where you were talked about satellite tracking and switching from non geostationary satellites.
The whole point to my reply was that transcievers are not some space age military tech. Just go back and read a few replies north of here by others as well to gain context.
 
That's trashy AF. How they gonna offer a premium service when they can't even provide the coverage they claimed. My date has been pushed twice now, I think I should just get a refund lol

I think the name is misleading. The "premium" service is not positioned as a "premium residential" service. It's aimed at business and enterprise customers. It also gets rid of any location-specific restrictions so it can be used as mobile broadband or deployed at various locations for temporary internet.

I got on the waiting list Feb 2021 and didn't get my kit until December. It was worth the wait IMO.
 
I think the name is misleading. The "premium" service is not positioned as a "premium residential" service. It's aimed at business and enterprise customers. It also gets rid of any location-specific restrictions so it can be used as mobile broadband or deployed at various locations for temporary internet.

I got on the waiting list Feb 2021 and didn't get my kit until December. It was worth the wait IMO.
You're probably right, I'm just being a Karen and impatient lol
 
Are they restricting this to people who don't currently have Internet or have slow Internet? If I lived out in the country without broadband and couldn't get access to this because some Telsa city fanboi wanted to use this over cable or fiber I would be fuming.
 
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Are they restricting this to people who don't currently have Internet or have slow Internet? If I lived out in the country without broadband and couldn't get access to this because some Telsa city fanboi wanted to use this over cable or fiber I would be fuming.

It's based on having a certain number of people per cell (geographic area), and beyond that I believe it's simple first come first serve. If you are in a remote area you would likely have an easier time getting service because there would be less people total in your cell to compete with. You wouldn't be in the same cell as a big city unless you were pretty close to the city.

I switched from Cable to Starlink. I had to have a pretty ghetto arrangement to make the Cable internet connection work though. We are on 10 acres with our house very far from the street (long driveway), but the cable company was only willing to run coax cable a short distance from the street. So for years we had our Cablemodem sitting inside a little well-pump shack in our front yard, and ran our own Cat6a the rest of the way to our house. We had one incident where an animal dug up the Cat6a cable and chewed it up. We had another incident where lightning struck in our yard, hit the cable, and fried the cablemodem. The connection between the cablemodem and the house was constantly falling back to 100mbps instead of 1Gbps because the Cat6a cable was pushing the 100 meter limit, and would require lots of unplugging and plugging back in combined with voodoo prayer to get it to link up at 1Gbps again. I was also paying $300/month for a business cable plan to avoid monthly caps. With Starlink we don't have to deal with our previous ghetto arrangement anymore and our monthly bill is 1/3rd what it was before while still being unlimited. My pings to most sites actually went down compared to what I had got on Cable. Suffice it to say I don't feel bad for getting Starlink.
 
Wait list Feb 9th 2021 - still waiting (They are saying by mid-2022) I have Tmobile 5g which is good for about an average of 18mbps. sometimes it needs to be reset, sometimes, sometimes they deprioritize me into the single digits MBPS.


fartoooften.jpg

This is what happens when soft reset doesn't work - suckiest manual reset ever - you can't just pull power as the gateway has a battery backup built in.
 
Wait list Feb 9th 2021 - still waiting (They are saying by mid-2022) I have Tmobile 5g which is good for about an average of 18mbps. sometimes it needs to be reset, sometimes, sometimes they deprioritize me into the single digits MBPS.


View attachment 440707
This is what happens when soft reset doesn't work - suckiest manual reset ever - you can't just pull power as the gateway has a battery backup built in.
Let the GW batt die?
 
I hope SLink comes sooner or later to Northwest GA.

Wife and I damn near bought an 80 acre undeveloped property but got cold feet. It was too much asking. Still looking. But well need it soon im sure. I want to run a goat farm and she wants horses. We want no mo' city or comcrap. Plus the market sucks and fed resever fiat failed pretend money system is collapsing and a single brocoli head is $5.00 right now. Last year it was like a buck. Probably not gonna make risky buys for a while.
 
This is what happens when soft reset doesn't work - suckiest manual reset ever - you can't just pull power as the gateway has a battery backup built in.

Woah, that totally sucks. Imagine having to do that in bad weather. There has got to be some way to remote switch....
 
Woah, that totally sucks. Imagine having to do that in bad weather. There has got to be some way to remote switch....
I don't have to imagine. You can unplug it then wait 5 hours, which is a viable solution if you're going to bed soon.
 
I don't have to imagine. You can unplug it then wait 5 hours, which is a viable solution if you're going to bed soon.

Any way to rig a remote kill switch to the battery backup? Maybe some kind of simple remote 12v relay or something from a hobby shop. Or just unplug the battery but maybe that leads to other issues.

All I know is my bro in law has a house in middle of nowhere, and he has to reboot his hughesnet router constantly... he put a smart plug on it and does it with his phone instead of going down into the basement where his gear is. There has to be a way.... anyway he would kill for Starlink even if he did have to get on a ladder every now and then. He's been on the waiting list for years.
 
Wait list Feb 9th 2021 - still waiting (They are saying by mid-2022) I have Tmobile 5g which is good for about an average of 18mbps. sometimes it needs to be reset, sometimes, sometimes they deprioritize me into the single digits MBPS.
Which modem do you have? I think you can disconnect the battery in the Trashcan model. You may have to take it apart to do that. The ony trick is to remove the SIM card slot first. There are videos on youtube that will some you how.

The battery on that model is useless on that model anyway. It does not keep data alive for me. I think it is probably intended for phone line applications (i.e. 911 Service)
 
Wait list Feb 9th 2021 - still waiting (They are saying by mid-2022) I have Tmobile 5g which is good for about an average of 18mbps. sometimes it needs to be reset, sometimes, sometimes they deprioritize me into the single digits MBPS.


View attachment 440707
This is what happens when soft reset doesn't work - suckiest manual reset ever - you can't just pull power as the gateway has a battery backup built in.
Yeesh. The instant a hardware reset requires a ladder is the instant I start getting creative...

In this case, I'm thinking a 9g servo mounted to push the reset button. Alternately, crack the case open and see if you can't route the battery+power through a DPST relay. Control it automatically with an ESP32+ethernet devboard set up to get 'er done when it sees packets drop for a sufficient period of time.
 
I don't have to imagine. You can unplug it then wait 5 hours, which is a viable solution if you're going to bed soon.
Surely there's gotta be something you can do involving an Arduino and a solenoid or something.
 
Surely there's gotta be something you can do involving an Arduino and a solenoid or something.
8724517.jpg

I was supposed to have Starlink by mid to late 2021, now it's mid 2022, My laziness trumps industriousness. Coincidently, my mother-in-law(God rest her soul) used to say "The lazy man works the hardest". Curiously, she was always looking at me when she said it.
 
Wife and I damn near bought an 80 acre undeveloped property but got cold feet. It was too much asking. Still looking. But well need it soon im sure. I want to run a goat farm and she wants horses. We want no mo' city or comcrap. Plus the market sucks and fed resever fiat failed pretend money system is collapsing and a single brocoli head is $5.00 right now. Last year it was like a buck. Probably not gonna make risky buys for a while.
Do it! We're thinking about doing the same, getting out of Houston and trying to find a nice quiet corner of the hill country that hasn't already been discovered and become unaffordable, so we might consider Arkansas, Missouri, Colorado or even Maine for our retirement. She wants to rescue donkeys and I'm thinking about ducks for a really big water garden :)
I have the choice here of crappy Comcast/Xfinity or even shittier AT&T... and I'd happily pay more $ upfront and monthly to be rid of the both of them from our lives!
PM me if you want a pretty good list of homesteading vids on YT.
 
We are looking at doing something similar in a year or two. We have been in Houston for over 20 years, now, and we want a place where there are less people, and no HOAs.
 
Anyone know for sure when Starlink will be available in the southeast? We are moving deeper in the country soon. It will be nice to have it. They say mid 2022 but I have no idea what that means it was Mid 2021 last year. Even after losing 40 satellites they still have over 1900 up in orbit now.

I cant stand comcast anymore. They are really expensive and one of the worst companies on Earth imo. Also we are moving to a rural area in the near future so I am going to drop them anyways since we wont get them where we are going which isn't such a bad thing.
 
Anyone know for sure when Starlink will be available in the southeast? We are moving deeper in the country soon. It will be nice to have it. They say mid 2022 but I have no idea what that means it was Mid 2021 last year. Even after losing 40 satellites they still have over 1900 up in orbit now.

I cant stand comcast anymore. They are really expensive and one of the worst companies on Earth imo. Also we are moving to a rural area in the near future so I am going to drop them anyways since we wont get them where we are going which isn't such a bad thing.
I'm in south Georgia and just received my kit. I haven't had high speed internet in 5 years. Purchased my house under the impression there was DSL available. Provider killer it off. So I was SOL when I arrived and tried to have it installed. Used Hughsnet (fuck them) and then a T Mobile home internet system (I'm in a cell service black hole). Starlink is amazing for me.
 
I'm in south Georgia and just received my kit.
Congratulations on getting a kit. (y) What part of south Georgia?

I'm in Middle GA (Macon / Warner Robins) area. Pre-Order placed on Feb 11th, 2021 and have an updated ETA of mid 2022. :(
 
Congratulations on getting a kit. (y) What part of south Georgia?

I'm in Middle GA (Macon / Warner Robins) area. Pre-Order placed on Feb 11th, 2021 and have an updated ETA of mid 2022. :(
Albany Leesburg. I waited a year well worth it don't mess with anything on file it'll delay the shipment
 
Albany Leesburg. I waited a year well worth it don't mess with anything on file it'll delay the shipment
Thanks. Yeah, I've been very careful not to move the location. I was originally mid / late 2021, but got bumped to mid 2022 when they updated everyone late last year. New signups in my areas are showing 2023...

FYI, for those that are still waiting. They've changed their order handling policy. Previously, you had so much time when yours became available to cancel a pre-order. Now, you have so much time to confirm your order. I do not remember off the top of my head how much time. It might be 3 days? But you do not want to miss confirming, it puts you at the end of the line.
 
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