Starlink Thread (split from SpaceX)

[tater]

15 minutes ago, wumpus said:

From what I remember of NM weather, you will at best get 23.5/7 reliability.  Nothing is going to get through a NM storm, but they don't last long.

Quite true, when it actually rains it looks a bit like a mushroom cloud, only moving across the ground.

 

[RuBisCO]

 

33 minutes ago, wumpus said:

From what I remember of NM weather, you will at best get 23.5/7 reliability.  Nothing is going to get through a NM storm, but they don't last long.

[excrement] I did not think about the weather here, we get lots of snow and then fog days in spring. 

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by RuBisCO

[tater]

33 minutes ago, RuBisCO said:

[excrement] I did not think about the weather here, we get lots of snow and then fog days in spring. 

Fog might not be an issue. There are beta testers on youtube in someplace far north and very snowy and they have reported it works well, in spite of snow. The intentionally put electronics in the dish itself so it melts snow apparently.

When I first moved to the foothills, there was no broadband, so I paid to have my ISP put a 802.11 dish on their roof, pointed at the mountains (at ME), and I also had a directional antenna. Worked OK, but if there was a storm between us... it dropped out. They were in the middle of town... maybe 15 miles away?

[CatastrophicFailure]

14 hours ago, tater said:

Yeah, $99/mo is kinda steep since I can get moderately fast DSL.

Anywhere rural here that's a good deal, though.

 

 

Now, where I am that’s actually extremely competitive, I pay Comcast around $180 for cable and broadband. Local phone company has options from $60-$90 but, well, they suck too. Did your buddy get the same “mid to late 2021” estimate?

 

3 hours ago, RuBisCO said:

Well I'm hoping it will be 24/7 reliable up here at 45°N by "mid to late 2021" as it says, it will be a real bummer if it is is not by the time I get it.

Same for you, eh?  Maybe that timeframe is just general and they’ll actually be shipping to early orderers sooner?

 

As I understand, and I could be wrong, StarLink should not really be affected by weather much, as the frequency it operates at can get through clouds/moisture, and the phased array antenna can compensate a great deal for any wind jostling of the dish. 

[tater]

3 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Now, where I am that’s actually extremely competitive, I pay Comcast around $180 for cable and broadband. Local phone company has options from $60-$90 but, well, they suck too. Did your buddy get the same “mid to late 2021” estimate?

Mine said late, so his NM house is only 30 mi north of here, so the same.

My 45 MB DSL is $50/mo. We have no cable here (the Sandia Pueblo would not let them trench the road back in the day as they were arguing about who owned the mountain behind me with Congress).

[RCgothic]

8 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Now, where I am that’s actually extremely competitive, I pay Comcast around $180 for cable and broadband. Local phone company has options from $60-$90 but, well, they suck too. Did your buddy get the same “mid to late 2021” estimate?

 

Same for you, eh?  Maybe that timeframe is just general and they’ll actually be shipping to early orderers sooner?

 

As I understand, and I could be wrong, StarLink should not really be affected by weather much, as the frequency it operates at can get through clouds/moisture, and the phased array antenna can compensate a great deal for any wind jostling of the dish. 

As well as picking an alternative satellite in an alternative direction, once the constellation is mature, which should give some protection from passing storms.

[RuBisCO]

On SpaceX news, sort of, Richard Shelby is retiring, he the senator to Alabama that was critical to forcing the construction for the Senate Launch System. 

6 hours ago, tater said:

Fog might not be an issue. There are beta testers on youtube in someplace far north and very snowy and they have reported it works well, in spite of snow. The intentionally put electronics in the dish itself so it melts snow apparently.

When I first moved to the foothills, there was no broadband, so I paid to have my ISP put a 802.11 dish on their roof, pointed at the mountains (at ME), and I also had a directional antenna. Worked OK, but if there was a storm between us... it dropped out. They were in the middle of town... maybe 15 miles away?

Yeah we did that for a time as we had line of sight with the local town water tower and they put up wifi on it, but it was slower then DSL. 

Edited February 10, 2021 by RuBisCO

[YNM]

9 hours ago, tater said:

When I first moved to the foothills, there was no broadband, so I paid to have my ISP put a 802.11 dish on their roof, pointed at the mountains (at ME), and I also had a directional antenna. Worked OK, but if there was a storm between us... it dropped out. They were in the middle of town... maybe 15 miles away?

802.11 protocol is either about 2.4 or 5/6 GHz, although there is a standard for 60 GHz (802.11ad, 802.11aj, 802.11ay). Starlink from what I can see use Ku, Ka or E band which is 12-18, 26-40 and 60-90 GHz so I think water vapor isn't an issue ? (K band is divided into Ku and Ka because of water absorption.)

Edited February 10, 2021 by YNM

[tater]

Moved this reply here:

  

22 hours ago, RuBisCO said:

[excrement] I did not think about the weather here, we get lots of snow and then fog days in spring. 

 

Looks like they need to work on the design a little, while it works, the guy's concerns about the icicles connecting to the base are legit I would think. Might need some leading edge deicing, lol.

[RuBisCO]

23 minutes ago, tater said:

Moved this reply here:

  

 

Looks like they need to work on the design a little, while it works, the guy's concerns about the icicles connecting to the base are legit I would think. Might need some leading edge deicing, lol.

That is going to be a problem, got to find a place to put it that is easy to get at (not roof) yet no trees above it. I'm thinking maybe wifi it from the septic tank mound so then we can walk out and keep it clean of snow and ice.

[tater]

9 minutes ago, RuBisCO said:

That is going to be a problem, got to find a place to put it that is easy to get at (not roof) yet no trees above it. I'm thinking maybe wifi it from the septic tank mound so then we can walk out and keep it clean of snow and ice.

His signal remains OK during weather (your first concern), but in places that stay cold, the icicles certainly seem like a possible issue for early Starlink.

If the motor is designed such that if it has any stress it does not run, then I suppose there might be limited times when signal drops because it stops tracking—though it doesn't seem to track all that much. Honestly, as the number of sats increases (and at high latitude) this is probably not an issue. It will quickly figure out, "point north," where the sats are hanging around, and not move. Lower lats the dish probably needs to move around more often (a few weeks when one direction is preferred, then some weeks when another is... as soon as constellation is more complete, it probably ends up more arbitrary.

It's important to note that I don't think the idea is for it to constantly track, it's to find a sweet spot, and stay there. It is motorized to KISS for users. No install required, it points itself—then doesn't need to point again.

[YNM]

6 hours ago, tater said:

the guy's concerns about the icicles connecting to the base are legit I would think.

6 hours ago, RuBisCO said:

got to find a place to put it that is easy to get at (not roof) yet no trees above it.

Maybe build-your-own-radome kit ?

6 hours ago, tater said:

Lower lats the dish probably needs to move around more often (a few weeks when one direction is preferred, then some weeks when another is... as soon as constellation is more complete, it probably ends up more arbitrary.

I was wondering, people kept saying about "not far north enough", since I live in the equator (literally the least north/south position possible). That being said this is a very densely populated island so land connection isn't really a problem, but other islands see considerably less density in the interior.

[tater]

8 minutes ago, YNM said:

Maybe build-your-own-radome kit ?

^^^^Duh! Of course! 

super easy to do, can’t believe I didn’t think of that.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

I wonder if they're offering to the far south yet, like NZ, Argentina or Chile? I suppose they'd need base stations there... McMurdo station?

Edited February 11, 2021 by StrandedonEarth

[tater]

Wonder where one gets a cheap radome?

Seems like you could make a tiny one as a geodesic dome. 3D print some hub sleeves for the vertices. There are loads of hub parts online for wood domes, or 3d printed ones that hold dowels (like tinkertoys). The idea here is to pre-cut plastic sheet stock into the triangles, then make parts that slide onto them. You'd then have to tape or caulk the seams between sheets, obviously. Seems straightforward.

[Gargamel]

11 hours ago, tater said:

Seems like you could make a tiny one as a geodesic dome. 3D print some hub sleeves for the vertices. There are loads of hub parts online for wood domes, or 3d printed ones that hold dowels (like tinkertoys). The idea here is to pre-cut plastic sheet stock into the triangles, then make parts that slide onto them. You'd then have to tape or caulk the seams between sheets, obviously. Seems straightforward.

That..... that seems like a good idea.   I live in a rural area, and I recently got rid of Hughesnet (BLECH!) for a landline, but the starlink numbers are far batter for a lower price it seems.     As my house is already starting to look like an NSA listening post, I don't want to add another dish, I'll probably mount the starlink receiver on the hughes mount.  Since I'm already building a custom mount, making one icicle proof would be a good idea.  I'll have to look into this.  

 

[tater]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

That..... that seems like a good idea.   I live in a rural area, and I recently got rid of Hughesnet (BLECH!) for a landline, but the starlink numbers are far batter for a lower price it seems.     As my house is already starting to look like an NSA listening post, I don't want to add another dish, I'll probably mount the starlink receiver on the hughes mount.  Since I'm already building a custom mount, making one icicle proof would be a good idea.  I'll have to look into this.  

 

Yeah, plastic sheet is east to come by. You just need to print clips to hold triangles together, and maybe index the vertices.

It can be incredibly thin, too.

[YNM]

14 hours ago, tater said:

Wonder where one gets a cheap radome?

I've seen most radomes being sold as simply just covering the front as to make sure that ice build-up isn't possible geometrically rather than the whole sphere stuff. Problem is you do need to make sure the material isn't badly affecting the reception too much.

On 2/11/2021 at 8:26 AM, StrandedonEarth said:

I wonder if they're offering to the far south yet, like NZ, Argentina or Chile? I suppose they'd need base stations there... McMurdo station?

If the first swarm are optimized for the US then anywhere with the same latitude in the north or the mirror latitude in the south would get it as well. Chile, Argentine, South Africa, Australia would get it.

Edited February 13, 2021 by YNM

[tater]

Because this has a motor, it needs a full cover I think.

[YNM]

6 hours ago, tater said:

Because this has a motor, it needs a full cover I think.

I mean the guy that shown the icicles forming in the dish didn't have any motor problems apart from the icicles from the dish extending to the platform right ?

Although barring that I've seen "portable radome for SATCOM" being basically just a small tent. As an interim measure you can just use a tent if you already have one ?

Edited February 13, 2021 by YNM

[tater]

3 hours ago, YNM said:

I mean the guy that shown the icicles forming in the dish didn't have any motor problems apart from the icicles from the dish extending to the platform right ?

Not the guy in the video above. I was thinking that if the dish tried to move and you did not break off the ice locking it to the platform, it could harm the motor unless the motor is watching out for resistance and doesn't strip whatever gearing it has (or harm the motor).

[YNM]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

I was thinking that if the dish tried to move and you did not break off the ice locking it to the platform, it could harm the motor unless the motor is watching out for resistance and doesn't strip whatever gearing it has (or harm the motor).

I mean, would the icicle form if the front of the dish is a bulged-out surface rather than a curved-in parabola ? That seems to be the idea for the front-cover-only radomes... I have no winter experience so I can't tell XD

Edited February 13, 2021 by YNM

[tater]

5 minutes ago, YNM said:

I mean, would the icicle form if the front of the dish is a bulged-out surface rather than a curved-in parabola ? That seems to be the idea for the front-cover-only radomes... I have no winter experience so I can't tell XD

The ice is melting cause the antenna is warm, and the air is so cold that the dropping water freezes. I live someplace not usually siuper cold, but after a winter storm I can have icicles coming down off the canales from my roof (slots the water leaves the roof from) all the way to the ground, as thick as my arm. Such a thing would firmly attach the dish to the ground, and if the motor tried to move it, it would not budge.

[YNM]

23 minutes ago, tater said:

The ice is melting cause the antenna is warm, and the air is so cold that the dropping water freezes.

Well the front cover radome won't be as hot as the dish itself right ? Unless if you're suggesting if the icicle can also grow from the back of the dish.

 

But yeah if you really need to from what I can see the most basic design is basically just a tent for full-covering radome.

[Val]

Moved some post from the past weeks over from the SpaceX topic.