Starlink

[Chappy133]

I have made the Starlink RV purchase.  Heading to Florida later this month with reservations to camp at Key West Naval Air Station (NAS) for the month of February.  It is dry camping with limited cellular service and mostly non-existence wifi.  I did my inter-web research of Starlink reviews and decided to give it the plunge.  Some folks exclaim it is a game changer and others are not impressed. If not satisfied you can return it up to 30 days for a full refund. The RV package it is the same as the residential unit with portability and is 110VT powered.  SL does not have a 12VT power option as of yet. That sine wave inverter I previously purchased will be the solution.  The RV option does allow the ability to pause the service when not using which the residential with portability does not.  The unit is scheduled to arrive today and I will update you along the way how it works out.

[Merlin]

Cool. I look forward to the report!

[DavidM]

Lots of good things have been written about Starlink on both boating and RV forums. Sounds perfect for your forthcoming KW stay. But let us know how it works if you also camp in shady spots. Probably not much shade in KW though.

David

[Chappy133]

Key West CG is wide open.  The challenge is trees blocking the receiver view of the north sky.  I did get the 20' harbor freight collapsible pole with SL adapter.  This should help but time will tell.

[Chappy133]

Starlink arrived today.  Only one minor issue with set up due to the wifi router name not the same as the instructions stated.  Working great even though it states I have an obstructed view to the North in our backyard in Easton, PA. Speed tests of 8.9 Mbps with 36 ms Latency (I do not speak geek).  Able to run multiple tablets, phones and MacBook and view You Tube videos. 

[DavidM]

Speed is rated as down and up (up is often slower but a fast speed isn't so important in up) in Mbps- millions of bits per second. Latency or Ping is the time in milliseconds to send the first bit from your device to the satellite (or maybe back down to the ground station) and back.

It takes about 5 Mbs to stream an HD movie, so two separate devices streaming movies simultaneously could cause problems with that speed. 36 ms latency is ok, high speed cable is usually under 20. High altitude satellites such as Hughes have more than 100 ms latency which may cause problems.

I would have expected faster than about 9 Mbps. Since you on the RV plan it has low priority so may get slowed down in dense population areas.

David

[keeena]

A track riding buddy of mine has Starlink and loves it; uses it exclusively (off-grid) and he said its pretty reliable. He gets much higher bandwidth than 9Mbps DL; I want to say he's usually near 100Mbs. I'm not personally familiar with plans or hardware options; I'd assume there are different packages though?

[Chappy133]

Took it out to the camper today to test run with the inverter on the camper.  Could not get the Starlink up. Came back later with the cables for the genny and was able to get things running.  I have my winter battery hooked up and read that the 450WT Sine inverter may not be the ticket.  A 500 pure sine wave inverter is on the way.  Much better speeds today. 

[DavidM]

Those are very nice speeds.

David

[Merlin]

That would be fine for everything I want to do. Thanks for the update.

[Chappy133]

After installing the 500 WT Pure Sine Wave inverter I got the Starlink (AKA Dishy) to work.  Nice job of streaming You Tube videos for a test. 

[gibby]

Okay, you have peaked my interest. Going to have to check this out for up here in Canada.

[DavidM]

Review this comprehensive thread started two years ago and still going strong with more than 1,000 posts. https://www.irv2.com/forums/f53/starlink-rv-installation-and-use-512812.html

Here is brief summary:

There are three types of Starlink service/hardware: standard- based on a fixed location, RV and mobile.

For the standard service, in some locations you may have to wait a while for more satellites to be launched to allow expansion. This policy while maybe frustrating ensures that there are sufficient satellites serving your location to get decent service. Decent service means 50+ Mbps and less than 50 ms latency. The standard physical package consists of a satellite "Dishy" and a router. You place the Dishy outside with an open view of the north sky. If the northern sky is obstructed by buildings or trees, you may not get a connection.

The standard service costs about $500 for the hardware (one time cost) and $125 +/- per month for service.

50+ Mbps will stream HD TV just fine, even with a couple of different users at the same time. Zoom also will work fine. Not sure about multi player video games. The latency is a bit slow for these I would think. FWIW the best internet connection available today is fiber optic based and has as much as 500 Mbps and <10 ms latency. To put that into perspective, I started my computer communications with a 300 bps dial up modem, a million times slower, but it also had a microprocessor and disk drive that were equally slow. But FWIW, it blew my mind when I wrote a short Basic program with my new Apple II that spit out the square roots of all numbers between 1 and 100 in a second or so.

The RV service uses the same hardware, but it allows you to try to connect anywhere and you don't have to wait as above. Usually (maybe always) it works, but as Chappy discovered the speed may be a bit slow, but that is all relative- see above. The RV service can be started or stopped any month and restarted later. The cost is the same for the dish but about $150/mo for the service.

The RV service plan can be used at home, but if you are in a high user density area, your speed may be slow and you are not guaranteed 50 Mbps.

The mobile service is the newest and it works on any moving platform: RV, truck, boat and at speed. But it requires a larger and much more expensive antenna- several thousand $.

And FWIW, it won't work for us. We always camp in rustic, forested campgrounds and unless you have a good view of the northern sky it won't connect.

Frankly, I am having a hard time seeing how it will all work out financially for Starlink when all satellites are launched. Right now I am guessing that Starlink has launched about 25% of their final satellite count which is projected to hit 10,000+. In some areas of the NE US you have to wait as much as a year for Starlink to allow you to connect with standard service. I just don't see how they can serve enough customers to pay for the billions they have spent and will spend. Maybe future satellites will be able to serve more customers per satellite. Time will tell.

David

[DavidM]

Okay, you have peaked my interest. Going to have to check this out for up here in Canada.

I think it works fine in Canada. Some users in Anchorage, AK have reported good service there.

David

[Merlin]

Thanks for the summary David and the installation info Chappy.

I'm curious about the power needs. Is it on all the time and what is the wattage. I wonder if the combination of TV/inverter/Starlink is a significant draw.