Starlink Internet Connection equipment - Home/Office user

[Nomadd]

I've seen peaks of 165 W on my system. That's AC in, so that includes the router, PoE injector, and dish. Average is around 100 W and doesn't seem to vary too much with use.

How are you measuring peaks? Some gear will register the 100ms or so it surges on power up or hardware connection to charge filter caps.

A cheap AC monitor, so I don't know the time scale of the peak. It might be a surge, but the highest I saw was a couple minutes after powering up.

Could be the transmitter coming on or the positioning motor. Does the dish ever seem to move? Being able to bias user dishes to less congested birds is something I always wondered about. Or being smart enough to plot obstructions using dropouts.

 You should put a big pepperoni pizza sticker on the dish.

[DigitalMan]

I've seen peaks of 165 W on my system. That's AC in, so that includes the router, PoE injector, and dish. Average is around 100 W and doesn't seem to vary too much with use.

How are you measuring peaks? Some gear will register the 100ms or so it surges on power up or hardware connection to charge filter caps.

A cheap AC monitor, so I don't know the time scale of the peak. It might be a surge, but the highest I saw was a couple minutes after powering up.

Could be the transmitter coming on or the positioning motor. Does the dish ever seem to move? Being able to bias user dishes to less congested birds is something I always wondered about. Or being smart enough to plot obstructions using dropouts.

 You should put a big pepperoni pizza sticker on the dish.

The other day I had a poster of San Diego harbor in my window to block the sun on one side. A red-shouldered hawk came crashing into the window (but didn't break it). He was a bit out of sorts for a moment, then flew away.

I took the poster down after that. I wonder what you could get with a pepperoni pizza?

[Nomadd]

I've seen peaks of 165 W on my system. That's AC in, so that includes the router, PoE injector, and dish. Average is around 100 W and doesn't seem to vary too much with use.

How are you measuring peaks? Some gear will register the 100ms or so it surges on power up or hardware connection to charge filter caps.

A cheap AC monitor, so I don't know the time scale of the peak. It might be a surge, but the highest I saw was a couple minutes after powering up.

Could be the transmitter coming on or the positioning motor. Does the dish ever seem to move? Being able to bias user dishes to less congested birds is something I always wondered about. Or being smart enough to plot obstructions using dropouts.

 You should put a big pepperoni pizza sticker on the dish.

The other day I had a poster of San Diego harbor in my window to block the sun on one side. A red-shouldered hawk came crashing into the window (but didn't break it). He was a bit out of sorts for a moment, then flew away.

I took the poster down after that. I wonder what you could get with a pepperoni pizza?

True. You don't want college students attacking your dish.

[su27k]

Some friendly hacking of the protocol between app and Dishy:

SpaceX shutdown part of Dishys API because of me (and others)

Starlink Dishy: getting some deeper status

Biggest discovery is Dishy switches satellite every 15 seconds. They was able to get real time satellite and gateway id used by Dishy, but that API is locked down now.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Some friendly hacking of the protocol between app and Dishy:

SpaceX shutdown part of Dishys API because of me (and others)

Starlink Dishy: getting some deeper status

Biggest discovery is Dishy switches satellite every 15 seconds. They was able to get real time satellite and gateway id used by Dishy, but that API is locked down now.

A 15 second sat to sat reconnection rate while also maintaining a continuous data stream connection has some interesting connotations when concerning potential next generation sat spot sizes to much much smaller than the current spot sizes (massive frequency reuse possibilities per sat). Showing that there is a possible 100 fold increase in total throughput per sat with current Dishy tech. Result is that there is nothing preventing significant throughput increases per sat other than the surface area on the sat's side where the phased array antennas are located. V2 could represent that change in surface area. NOTE is that although there would be more spots the same total area covered by a sat stays the same such that increases in power is a function of a factor of 2 (because of spots overlap) and another factor related to the efficiencies of power used to Effective Radiated Power (ERP) of 50% to 80% that would be 1/efficiency factor times 2 for increased power.

Basic implication is that it looks like current Dishy is compatible with the next gen V2 sat without any modification.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Thanks for the detail data.

I see it stays mostly above 100Mbps without interruption but there are the occasional dropouts. Maybe when more sats are on orbit the dropouts problem may mostly solve itself. But they may need to upgrade the software a little hopefully without impacting the latency. I saw what looked like almost a 1 sec dropout during what looked like a sat switch event. It may not be a problem with Dishy but with the particular sat and it's communication with the Gateway and the Gateway's communication with the Internet. Without additional data that can identify sat, frequency beam on sat id, Gateway id, Gateway to Internet bandwidth/latency data. At most we can just guess at what is needed as far as a solution. In order to get all that data would probably need a SpaceX employee ID and be working in the Starlink network performance analysis department.

[ballerx]

Do you suppose Greg Wyler is the only one able to solve this problem?

I'd naively figured it was still unsolved. Guess I was wrong about that.

It is one of the reasons why I pointed out that Tim Farrar is a completely unreliable source with regards to insight into Starlink. He estimates a single Starlink terminal to cost between $1,500 and $2,000. That estimate is not supported by any facts.

there is no point in discussing  with Tim as he is just repeating what other profis in the industry have said. The terminal has 1600 chips. There is information that this is As-Ga MMIC (Monolithic microwave integrated circuit)
(https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20200820PD207.html), WIN Semiconductors (https://www.winfoundry.com/en-US) Taiwan.
And the fact that after the words of Greg Wyler in 2019 (who personally invested in this company and possibly wanted to attract other investors) nothing happened about "the $ 15 miracle in 2020" , tells me that $ 2,000 is possibly a bottom estimate ..
I have been hearing from new companies in their first year for 5 years now about the future breakthrough and prices of 1000 USD per ESA FPA terminal. Only after 2 years the authors of these presentations cannot be found anywhere ..

And my congratulations to Space X for a great job - the terminal is really great!!!!!

If they're running Gallium Arsenide ICs on those things, they're going to be bound by the fabrication cost of the wafer and the size of the IC. A fully developed GaAs wafer, I believe, runs around $1000, but I don't really know for sure; that might be too low since silicon CMOS on moderate processes run around that price. We need IC sizes and wafers to know the real cost of the antenna bits.

Cursory research on the size of antenna elements suggest that a 6" wafer should yield something around 8000 devices, for a guesstimated cost to SpaceX of something between 10 and 20 cents per IC.

My understanding is that typical consumer grade RF goes for around USD1,400-1,600 per 6" wafer at Win Semi, that's the typical price even for large volume orders like Broadcom chips for iPhone. Looking at the newest V2 Starlink Dish, the RF elements are now down to about 450. Assuming 10,000 yield per wafer at 1mm x 1mm (typical smartphone bare die size), 1 wafer could make 10000/450= 22 dishes. At USD1,500 per wafer, all the RF elements on a dish would cost USD70 to make.

Is there a better understanding now as to the potential technology being adopted in the dish now that V2 is out?

It just makes more sense that GaAs is being utilized at Ku/Ka bands. However, if STMicro is indeed the custom part maker for the RF FEMs, they're probably using CMOS given their expertise, unless they outsource to Win Semi.

[Mandella]

After examining my sky with the latest version of the Starlink app, I've decided to go ahead and make the commitment to setting it up on a telescoping mast. Forgive the Amazon link, but do you folks with experience think this would get the job done?

https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Telescoping-Mast-Antenna-Collapses/dp/B019FVJKAA/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=ham+radio+antenna+mast&qid=1633991148&sr=8-4

20' 9" assembled height. Collapses to a convenient 5' for shipping and storage.

Bottom: 2-1/4" OD x 18 Gauge 2nd Section: 2" OD x 18 Gauge 3rd Section: 1-3/4" OD x 18 Gauge

4th Section: 1-1/2" OD x 18 Gauge Top: 1-1/4" OD x 16 Gauge (Mast is overlapped for added strength)

I'm planning to set it into a ground mount itself set in concrete, and probably need to use guy wires too.

[envy887]

After examining my sky with the latest version of the Starlink app, I've decided to go ahead and make the commitment to setting it up on a telescoping mast. Forgive the Amazon link, but do you folks with experience think this would get the job done?

https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Telescoping-Mast-Antenna-Collapses/dp/B019FVJKAA/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=ham+radio+antenna+mast&qid=1633991148&sr=8-4

20' 9" assembled height. Collapses to a convenient 5' for shipping and storage.

Bottom: 2-1/4" OD x 18 Gauge 2nd Section: 2" OD x 18 Gauge 3rd Section: 1-3/4" OD x 18 Gauge

4th Section: 1-1/2" OD x 18 Gauge Top: 1-1/4" OD x 16 Gauge (Mast is overlapped for added strength)

I'm planning to set it into a ground mount itself set in concrete, and probably need to use guy wires too.

It will probably work. You will definitely want guy lines, as the dish is pretty heavy and has a lot of sail area.

I used a 10' section of 2" metal conduit pipe bolted to a 4x4 grounded in concrete, to get to about 15' dish height. It was sturdy enough, but not high enough, so now it's on the stock tripod and screwed to my 2nd story roof.

[cosmicvoid]

You will definitely want guy lines, as the dish is pretty heavy and has a lot of sail area.

What he said^^. If the dish wavers in the wind, I wonder if the "beam servo" software can compensate for that.

[vsatman]

. If the dish wavers in the wind, I wonder if the "beam servo" software can compensate for that.

undoubtedly!  FAR ESA scan cycle is 5-10 microseconds

[su27k]

https://www.starlink.com/ is showing new version of the user terminal with rectangular dish which is currently available in the US, attached is a comparison of old dish and new dish from https://support.starlink.com/topic?category=10, main differences summarized by reddit:
1. Dishy is smaller and much lighter
2. The router now supports 3x3 MU-MIMO
3. The router has a larger operating temperature range
4. The router is now water-resistant but configured for indoor use
5. The cable between Dishy and the router is now detachable.

Another difference seems to be they integrated the power supply brick into the router, and the router doesn't come with an Ethernet port, but user can buy a separate Ethernet adaptor for it.

[Mandella]

https://www.starlink.com/ is showing new version of the user terminal with rectangular dish which is currently available in the US, attached is a comparison of old dish and new dish from https://support.starlink.com/topic?category=10, main differences summarized by reddit:
1. Dishy is smaller and much lighter
2. The router now supports 3x3 MU-MIMO
3. The router has a larger operating temperature range
4. The router is now water-resistant but configured for indoor use
5. The cable between Dishy and the router is now detachable.

Another difference seems to be they integrated the power supply brick into the router, and the router doesn't come with an Ethernet port, but user can buy a separate Ethernet adaptor for it.

Changes which effect me:

Shorter cable at 75 ft (23 m). I can buy an extended cable which is actually longer than the original at 150 ft (46 m) for what I assume is an extra $85.00 (no idea if they will allow an option to just get the longer cable instead of the regular).

Also going to need that Ethernet adaptor for an additional $20.

But hey I like the new square shape...

[Asteroza]

Smaller UT antenna has consequences for max bandwidth though...

[vsatman]

Smaller UT antenna has consequences for max bandwidth though...

NO!
new dish  is  50 x 30 cm, antenna size 48 x 29 cm
BUT!!! is very important  that
Aperture efficiency is 74%  (for UT1 is only 57%)
Maximum Transmit Duty Cycle is 14% (for UT1 is only11%)

Summary - Gain is the same, Download speed is  the same , Upload speed will be   about 25% better..

[su27k]

Receiving Starlink satellite beacons on a budget (using a SDR - Software Defined Radio)

In this post I will present how it is possible to receive beacon signals from the Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit using ordinary hardware that you most likely already have laying around or that is widely available.

[vsatman]

Observations of Starlink Satellite -to- User Downlink w/ Software Defined Radio
From Reddit / Posted by  christianhahn09
///I’ve started work on a “Starlink observatory” with the primary objective being: to track overhead Starlink satellites, collect physical layer statistics and enable further signal analysis. Focus will be on the Satellite-to-User downlink.

So far, I have built and automated a setup to collect signal captures of the downlink 240 MHz traffic in the 10.7 - 12.7 GHz KU band. My setup consists of a KU band dish + LNB, a software defined radio capable of sustained 400 Msps (complex) receive, an LNB controller + power supply, a Linux host to perform signal analysis and all the miscellaneous RF plumbing required (filters, bias-tee, attenuators, etc). Presently, this setup is running day and night in my backyard+garage listening for Starlink downlink traffic and storing a subset to disk for further offline analysis. These files are really quite big - I don’t keep them around for long.

This is all still pretty early, but a couple observations:

(1) I have received Downlink Satellite-to-User traffic in the 250 MHz channels at: 11075, 11325 and 11575 MHz. I have never observed traffic at the lowest channel, 10825 MHz. Although my setup supports it, I have never looked at the upper (4) 250 MHz channels. Occupied signal bandwidth per channel is 240 MHz.
more is here  https://www.reddit.com/r/StarlinkEngineering/comments/qwm1v5/observations_of_starlink_satellite_to_user/

[su27k]

Dishy V3 – Teardown

When I got the V2 user terminal (“Dishy”), I was lucky in that a few folks had already torn them apart: Ken Keiter went deep with a destructive teardown that shed a lot of light on the internals, and MikeOnSpace took a slightly less destructive (yet still power-tool driven) approach.

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to dig in a bit myself, and started collaborating with Lennert Wouters on the disassembly and EMMC dumping. Lennert went much further – eventually posting an awesome writeup on what he found.

So, having had a peek into V2, I was anxious to see what changed on V3. Were they using the same components – SoC, antenna setup, motors, etc? Or had the whole design changed with the updated form factor?

[jackvancouver]

How can one estimate the duty cycle of a dish during upload? Simple power usage? or is this mostly smoke and mirrors buried in the user terminal firmware? My initial guess would be if they increased the interval but kept the same transmit power, that could lead to improvement for real time communications?

[su27k]

https://twitter.com/olegkutkov/status/1563334090006593537

Quick repair of Starlink terminal from a war zone.
Damaged cable was repaired and sealed.
Bad motors were replaced with donor units. It's a typical problem of the terminal. Plastic gears are quickly dying in military use.
Everything was cleaned up, and Dishy is ready for service.


Despite scratches, the antenna array is intact.
Also, I added lost power/ethernet cables and the original router.