Starlink to KOSH

[M20F]

Solar powered no less. 

[802flyer]

Quote

Solar powered no less. 

I’ve been looking at getting a similar setup and am curious what you see for average power required…is the 57W pictured fairly typical (and/or was it running other stuff)?


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[Fly Boomer]

11 hours ago, 802flyer said:

(and/or was it running other stuff

I think running other stuff.

[A64Pilot]

I just installed Starlink at home, the new Gen 3 one, that by the way in certain areas like Fl for instance the hardware is for sale for $299. Sale price is based I believe on areas that have excess capacity. Regular price $499 https://www.starlink.com/us/residential

But anyway the average power consumption is supposed to be between 75 and 100W, based I think if it’s heater to melt snow is on. https://www.starlink.com/specifications?spec=4

Gen 3 Starlinks antenna is slightly larger but has no positioning motor, and it doesn’t have the big tripod stand, just a “kickstand”

However if you want one for airplane camping look at the mini, I don’t have experience with one, but it’s meant for backpackers and I believe will work off of 12V where standard ones need 120-240 VAC, so you would need an inverter, but the mini you don’t and I think of course it’s about half the power consumption.

https://www.starlink.com/specifications?spec=5

I’m on the fence as to buy another for the Motorhome or to put my home one in “Roam” and take it with us. Antenna is real easy to mount, I used the pipe adapter and repurposed my satellite dish mount.

‘According to what I have read on one of the camping forums is if you buy one for residential you can take it to roam and back to residential, roam is $150 a month I think, Residential is $120 a month I think, Roam may be de-prioritized meaning in high traffic areas it may slow down some. You can flip back and forth monthly, or turn it off for several months, then buy a month. All this based on what I have read, no experience yet.

However if you buy one initially with the Roam service plan it can’t be changed to Residential, doesn’t seem logical and I don’t know if that’s true or not just what I read.

Also if you buy at the sale price it must stay Residential for six months or you will be charged regular price if you take it to Roam.

I theorize this is to prevent RVers from having it shipped to Fl then traveling all over with it, thereby beating the “system”

[M20F]

On 8/4/2024 at 10:33 AM, Fly Boomer said:

I think running other stuff.

I get 55-67 watts off the panel (Jackery SolarSaga 80). 
 
The Starlink draws 50-60. 
  
I have Gen-2 and went from residential to roam back to residential for the trip. 

[M20F]

I have to say as additional to anyone.  Starlink is the like the coolest thing ever.  I literally flush $120 a month down the toilet so I can update my databases at my hanger. 
 
I love flipping to roam and going crazy places and firing it up.  I was in middle of ND a couple of weeks ago and was downloading giant files in the middle of a pasture for no reason other than I could. 
 
This body maybe turning into old man material but my heart beats as a 12yr old.  Frogs and Starlinks beware. 
 
I highly recommend it for anyone and as noted you can buy the hardware, deactivate, and in an emergency fire it up (just update firmware every so often which is free).  
 

[Fly Boomer]

40 minutes ago, M20F said:

 I literally flush $120 a month down the toilet so I can update my databases at my hanger. 

Not as expensive as your toy, but I have an MVNO SIM in my IPAD.  They charge a minimal monthly fee plus whatever gigabytes I burn through.  The idea was to have a low-cost solution available "for exigent circumstances".  Ha!  I use it daily, and eat through the Gigs.  The big difference is yours should work almost anywhere; I need a cell tower.

[201er]

I just used the 5G on my phone. Reception this year was a lot better and faster than in the past.

[Fly Boomer]

24 minutes ago, 201er said:

I just used the 5G on my phone. Reception this year was a lot better and faster than in the past.

Since I have Internet access on my iPad, I rarely touch my phone.

[A64Pilot]

On 8/10/2024 at 7:27 PM, 201er said:

I just used the 5G on my phone. Reception this year was a lot better and faster than in the past.

I’ve been living with Verizon home internet for years, plus side it’s only $40 a month, downside is where I am it barely works and outages are frequent. Where I live is at the fringe of reception, as we are pretty close to the “The Villages” in Fl. I kept waiting for Verizon to put up another tower, but it’s not happened yet, starting to think it won’t. 4G only, no 5G.

When we lived on the boat we used a phone for a Hot Spot, nothing else was available, even sometimes ran a phone up the mast when reception was poor, it helped some.

US Government is spending HUGE amounts of money bringing in high speed to Rural areas for some reason? I’m talking Billions with a B. But I haven’t seen it, I suspect a few are getting Rich off of this subsidy.

https://www.usda.gov/broadband#:~:text=USDA is Investing in Rural Broadband&text=In 2018%2C USDA introduced the,rural areas and tribal lands.

Anyway Starlink exists, is the Killer for high speed. So why should the Taxpayer pay for high speed for those in the Country?

Right now I speed test at over 200 Meg 300 isn’t at all unusual. Nothing I have can come close to using that much data.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

@ragedracer1977 just installed one in the back window of his 310. He is getting a perfect signal even doing steep turns. The passengers are going to be so happy!

[A64Pilot]

As I understand it Starlinks nex gen Satellites that have already been built and tested will have the ability to communicate directly to a cell phone. I assume a new device, I would think frequency would be different?

Elon has already signed an agreement with T-mobile, T-mobile has been the carrier for all Tesla’s for years.

Elon is waiting on Starship to come online before he starts launching the new Sats.

This is just from reading, is it true? I can’t say really.

 

[A64Pilot]

6 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

@ragedracer1977 just installed one in the back window of his 310. He is getting a perfect signal even doing steep turns. The passengers are going to be so happy!

That would I think be the flat panel high performance.

I think $2,500 for equipment, I don’t know how much per month. I’m considering one for the Motorhome, IF the price comes down and IF we start using the thing often enough to justify it

[A64Pilot]

Apparently Starlink “Direct to Cell” is a thing now.

Think that just maybe there is money in that?

https://www.starlink.com/business/direct-to-cell

[N201MKTurbo]

2 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

That would I think be the flat panel high performance.

I think $2,500 for equipment, I don’t know how much per month. I’m considering one for the Motorhome, IF the price comes down and IF we start using the thing often enough to justify it

The one he got was on sale for $500.

[N201MKTurbo]

https://www.starlink.com/roam

He made a bracket that hooks to the existing curtin mounts, so he didn't have to modify the plane at all. He runs it from a portable battery pack in the baggage compartment.

 

[A64Pilot]

27 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The one he got was on sale for $500.

That’s Musk’s mode of operation, he even spoke about it in his Master Plan #1.

Idea is you start out high priced, because the tech does cost a lot and there are only a few sold, but as economy of scale kicks in it drives prices down and instead of getting greedy you can if you choose sell at a lower price and sell lots more. (I think of it as the Henry Ford model of business) but I’m no businessman.

Musk has always lost money on Starlink equipment, but the money of course is in the subscription, Starlink anyway, and I think he’s making a killing with his Superchargers for example, more cars you sell, the more you make with the chargers.

Anyway look at the car prices now etc. I pay $100 a month for full self driving now for example, it wasn’t worth the initial expense to me, plus it didn’t work then, but when the price came down to $100 a month, and it works I bought in.

[Pinecone]

47 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Apparently Starlink “Direct to Cell” is a thing now.

Think that just maybe there is money in that?

https://www.starlink.com/business/direct-to-cell

That could be the trick to inflight access for small GA.  Smaller antenna.

[M20F]

App now shows power usage.  I don’t have the mini but it is about 50% of a full size and has zero performance degradation.  
 
I am debating springing $30 for it and slapping it on the windshield of the Mooney.   People are getting good results off sunroofs, windshields, etc. in cars but haven’t heard anything on aircraft performance.  

 

[A64Pilot]

21 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

That could be the trick to inflight access for small GA.  Smaller antenna.

It could in my opinion be revolutionary for some, not most though, most I think live their lives in Cities and are never without fast cellar coverage.

When we were Cruising our sailboat only real communication was High Freq (essentially short wave) radio and it was a pain and hit and miss depending on Sun spots etc and data was a real pain, expensive and very slow, when you could get it to work.

We also had a Garmin Inreach but it was limited in its usefulness.

A cell phone that could work no matter where you are would be revolutionary, being able to download Grib files and Wx data in the middle of the Ocean plus never being out of contact with Family etc would really change things.

Game changer for anyone off grid

[Fly Boomer]

5 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

A cell phone that could work no matter where you are would be revolutionary, being able to download Grib files and Wx data in the middle of the Ocean plus never being out of contact with Family etc would really change things.

Instead of cellphone, they should call it a satphone.

[EricJ]

5 hours ago, M20F said:

App now shows power usage.  I don’t have the mini but it is about 50% of a full size and has zero performance degradation.  
 
I am debating springing $30 for it and slapping it on the windshield of the Mooney.   People are getting good results off sunroofs, windshields, etc. in cars but haven’t heard anything on aircraft performance.  

 

 

Ragedracer's is working in the back window of his C310.   Our local CAP Squadron flew a larger terminal on a fixture in the back window of a C182 and that worked fine, too, but it was large and unwieldy and took up a ton of space.   The mini is far more practical for a small airplane, and the thought is it would probably work okay on the glareshield of a Mooney, or in the tail of composite airplanes that don't have too much internal screening for lightning or EMI control.   

The direct-to-cell stuff is TBD for how usable it'll be.   They won't have enough capacity to replace cellular systems, and there are some other limitations that'll likely come into play.

FWIW, none of this is new, other satellite constellations have been doing direct-to-cell for a while and direct-to-handset for decades, like what Apple has been doing or Garmin in-touch.   Starlink is taking the approach of increasing capacity by flooding the sky with small satellites, regardless of the impact it has on anyone else, because space is poorly regulated.   I'm interested to see how it plays out in the future.

 

[A64Pilot]

What IS new is that it’s not a Sat phone it’s a cell phone and I assume will operate just like a cell as the frequency is the same. When I was ferrying aircraft I would carry a Sat Phone with me. There were two Sat types, one was crap the other better, one I would carry was better. Iridium I think?

But a Sat phone isn’t like a cell phone at all really, first you must have a clear view of the sky, even foliage would block the signal forget being indoors and it’s in and out as one Sat comes and goes, it’s not seamless like a Cell. So dropped calls were common, then price wise Sat phone calls are orders of magnitude more expensive you didn’t call just to chat unless you had money to burn, just as there have been data terminals at least since 1990 when I was in the Desert, the Civilian tech reps carried them, but they were slow and stupid expensive to use. Again Iridium, looked like a brief case.

Just as there has been Internet on Yachts and private Jets for years, have you looked at the price? It was in the thousands per month for a boat I assume the same for Jets.

Just like there has been Hughes Net for decades, compared to Hughes Net Starlink is a complete game changer, and I expect once it gets ironed out and the price comes down Starlink direct to cell will be like comparing Hughes Net to Starlink.

Time will tell, if it’s like just about everything else Musk does being an early adopter will come at a premium, but in a year or two mere mortals like me might can afford it.

Even light foliage will block a Starlink signal, I’m surprised that it will work through a plexiglass window, doubt it would work thru composite airframes.

Cell frequencies even penetrate buildings though of course.

[Pinecone]

3 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

Even light foliage will block a Starlink signal, I’m surprised that it will work through a plexiglass window, doubt it would work thru composite airframes.

Cell frequencies even penetrate buildings though of course.

It depends on the composite.  Fiberglass, no problem. Carbon fiber, problem.

Cell signals don't penetrate the building, they come in through the non-metal areas, such as windows.

 

[toto]

3 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

There were two Sat types, one was crap the other better, one I would carry was better. Iridium I think?

Iridium is definitely better than Globalstar. More satellites, better coverage. 

Garmin uses Iridium for InReach, Apple uses Globalstar for the iPhone 14+ .. we’ll see how that plays out.