In the thread "Has anyone gotten anything through USPS lately?", Scott had invited me to post here in the Free For All section about how the Starlink satellite internet system that we have been trying out has been working for us, and I am happy to do so now.

To begin, as I mentioned in the other thread, like many hundreds (thousands, millions?) of underserved rural internet customers here in Canada I had probably been one of the many early hopeful registrants for Starlink's "Better Than Nothing Beta" program; but had heard nothing back from them for some months. Purely on a whim, I recently decided to revisit the Starlink web site to try registering again, and was pleased to discover that the service was now being offered in my area (I'm roughly at latitude 44.59 and longitude -81.18). I had to confirm the exact geographical location of where I intended to use the service (by dragging a satellite image map beneath an overlaid locator pin), at which point I was given directions to a program registration page. The caveat was that once I landed on the registration page I would have only 15 minutes to complete the transaction. No pressure!

But really, it was a no-brainer decision to sign up for the beta program, as I've been paying a small fortune in Loonies & Toonies for capped "wireless" internet service over a major telecom's LTE network, with typical signal latency of over 100ms, download speeds of just over 4Mbps and upload speeds of only around 1Mbps. Needless to say, the gamers and streamers in my family have not been happy campers!

In the early days of the beta program there had been all kinds of talk online about the possible legal ramifications of joining the program. It was suggested that speaking publicly about the equipment or the service would invite the wrath of Elon; that you'd be given a lifetime suspension from service and, perhaps even more significantly, be forever prohibited from emigrating to Mars! I must say that last aspect certainly gave me cause for some serious consideration... not... but in actual fact there has been little if any emphasis on beta confidentiality. I don't recall anything particularly sinister or even noteworthy about the EULA / consent that I must have had to agree to; or if indeed there even was one. (As they say, "I could tell you; but then I'd have to..." Well, you know.) And certainly the publicly available "Starlink Beta Consumer Service Terms" and "Critical Information Summary" are all rather innocuous.

So, are we true beta testers? Technically yes, I suppose, because as Starlink likes to say, "We're all still beta testers." But as more and more of those minimalist Starlink constellation satellites are launched and come online, and as the engineers have more and more opportunities to test, evaluate and modify the software and firmware, things will definitely keep... wait for it... looking up!

And yes, it's been genuinely fun being a beta tester. Certainly the initial setup was quite easy, as most of the components are shipped fully assembled right in the box. Speaking of that shipping box, pictures posted of it online somehow made me think that it was about the size of what might be a large "party pizza" box. Yeah, no! In actual fact it's more about the size of what would be required to ship a folding e-bike!! Think of it as that classic cardboard Estes Model Rocket Range Box on mega steroids -- about six times the size! But having said that I would note that it could indeed be repurposed to serve as an awesome back-of-pickup-or-SUV range box for taking rockets and/or ground support equipment out to your local park or soccer field.

There's something else that could be nicely repurposed for our hobby as well, and that's the elegant cast metal (I'm assuming) tripod that's designed to mount "Dishy McFlatface" (the Starlink satellite dish) on for the initial setup. It too reminded me of a piece of Estes equipment, in this case the Porta-Pad E Launch Pad. Although some Starlink customers may choose to keep Dishy mounted on that tripod either on the ground or on a deck, I think most will resort to mounting it more like a traditional satellite TV dish with a pole or roof mount, rendering the tripod superfluous. In my mind though, I see a wealth of possibilities for turning the tripod into an amazing launch pad for low and mid-power rockets. It's absolutely rock solid and flex free, and while lightweight overall, each of the three legs have an anchoring hole that could be used with something like tent pegs or I suppose even BBQ skewers to solidly anchor it to Terra Firma. All it would need would be some kind of wood, metal, PVC or 3D printed accessory hub that would support a metal exhaust shield and launch rod...

(Continued next post)

__________________
John

Was CAR-ACF# S 337
Was NAR# 91049
Was SAM# 0323

Life begins when the countdown reaches zero!

(Continued from previous post)

...But those are considerations for the future. As I mentioned, the initial setup was quite easy, and if all you were going to do is set Dishy up on your lawn or deck and plug it in to an exterior GFCI outlet, then you could indeed be up and running in about 10-15 minutes. But for most people, permanent installation will mean drilling some holes through walls and running ethernet cable between studs, rafters, joists and so on, and all of that will take more time and effort.

Once we checked for potential signal obstructions (walls, poles, trees etc.) both visually and with the Starlink mobile app, for our initial setup my son and I duct taped the tripod to a folding plastic table and set Dishy up on the north side of our cabin (unlike conventional geosynchronous orbit TV satellites that on our part of the planet require a southern exposure, the LEO Starlink satellites actually require a northern exposure). Once I had drilled through the exterior wall (through an existing plywood covered access point) and hooked up the cable to the power supply, this temporary setup allowed us to enjoy the ultra-quick Starlink signal while I leisurely drilled even more holes for the cable to go through.

Oh yes, the cable. Unlike conventional satellite installations where much of the connections can be done on-site or in-field, this is not the case with Dishy. Dishy comes with a 100-foot long skein of what appears to be exterior grade shielded Cat-6 ethernet cable pre-attached, and since Dishy's circuits and motors rely on electrical power to function, that power is delivered via the ethernet cable. POE, in other words. The power requirements alone seem to be pushing the edges of what can be delivered in that way, and effectively means that no cutting or splicing of the cable is permitted at present (and BTW, good luck trying to find an NEC or CEC compliant grounding unit for that particular technological approach). To reduce signal noise, the cable is fitted with two ferrite cores: a fairly large one near the dish itself and a slightly smaller one near the RJ45 connector that plugs into the power supply. The size of even the smaller ferrite core and the characteristics of the RJ45 connector itself requires that fairly large holes be drilled if you are running the cable through walls and such. I elected to use 1" spade bits for that purpose, and to keep any dirt or sawdust out of the connector while I was running the cable I sheathed the connector with a duct tape wrapped sandwich bag (my initial exterior entry hole was actually 1.5" inches in diameter though, to allow me to use a desk cable grommet and cap for a more "finished" appearance outside).

Our plan was to use a conventional style satellite TV "J-Mount" to actually attach the dish to the side of our cabin. We ordered one through Amazon, of course; but had to wait a few more days for it to get lost and then found in the mail. Eventually it arrived though and we proceeded with the permanent installation of the dish. I drilled out the middle set of attachment holes in the top end of the J-mount to about 7/16", through which I planned to put a 3/8"x2" bolt secured by a nylon locking nut for the actual dish attachment, then used the recommended 5/16"x3" lag bolts to attach the J-mount to the wall of the cabin. Then it was a simple matter to detach Dishy's short vertical mast from the (now repurpose able) tripod, remove the spring steel locking clip from inside the mast, place and secure the mast into the receiving end of the J-mount and finally rotate the whole assembly into the desired, optimal position. Easy peesy!

Or at least it would have been, if I had taken the time to properly "stow" the dish and then shut off the correct electrical supply circuit before proceeding. Which I didn't do. Which meant that as soon as I popped Dishy's mast out of the tripod it began to gyrate determinedly all around on its gimbals, desperately trying to re-establish contact with the overhead satellites (insert GIF of Dr. Frankenstein exclaiming "It's alive, it's alive!!"). Thankfully my son was available to rush indoors to unplug the Starlink power supply, effectively saving the day as well as my emotional and financial wellbeing.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Even with Dishy mounted on the table at the side of our cabin we were getting vastly improved signal quality compared to our previous ISP's LTE service. One early speed test we did yielded a latency of just 42ms, with a download speed of 54Mbps and an upload speed of 15Mbps. Then, curiously enough, once we had Dishy permanently mounted with the J-mount only about 9' higher than that table we were actually getting speeds from two to three times as fast! Just that much closer to the satellites seemed to make all the difference, amirite?

Many people in our same situation as before have described Starlink as being "a game changer", and even at this early stage in our experience with it I would certainly have to agree with that assessment. Yes, there are a few occasions when the satellites may be "down" due to beta system tests and upgrades, or when the still evolving constellation of satellites move out of our particular geographical range. But even now those periods seem to be getting fewer and fewer. Dishy has seemingly "found" a near-perfect orientation for itself, pointing happily upwards and more or less due north through a "hole" in our surrounding tree cover. Our weather here has been quite good -- too good in fact -- so it will be interesting to see how Dishy handles its first Bruce Peninsula blizzard or nor-wester. But hey, its got a hydrophobic coating and is even HEATED, so I'm sure we'll be good to go. We can stream what we like for as long as we want, and gone forever are the worries about bandwidth, data caps, overage fees and so on.

And as I mentioned at the end of my previous post in the other thread, "Hey, anything to help the advancement of science and technology, eh?!"

__________________
John

Was CAR-ACF# S 337
Was NAR# 91049
Was SAM# 0323

Life begins when the countdown reaches zero!

This sounds seriously cool. We are not in any sort of "underserved" area (just south of Seattle a ways) but I have been on the list for some time as I'd love an alternative to Quest DSL (what we have) and Comcast cable ('nuff said) that isn't cell-carrier-based.

The cable story was interesting and is good to know about, as is the preferred orientation for the antenna. I am used to the southern exposure needed for DirecTV (don't have it anymore).

Will be watching with interest, while hoping those of us in more urban areas are allowed to join the fun.

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Bernard Cawley
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Thanks for the informative post on StarLink, John!

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Scott D. Hansen
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Just as a quick update, I should note that over the last couple of days we have had the chance to test Dishy's performance during the aforementioned blizzard, and I am very pleased to report that we have enjoyed consistently strong satellite signal strength throughout the time. With snow squalls forecast to continue through the rest of the weekend, this performance standard will be especially appreciated later today, as I understand that there is some sort of a major professional athletic contest taking place this evening. In a spirit of continental comity with our former colonial cousins, the Americans, my son and I are hoping to watch this particular televised event, which I understand is being called a "Super Bowl." I find that to be a somewhat ironic title though, because the sport in question involves neither lawn nor lane bowling; but is instead a peculiar derivative of the great sport of rugby which they call "American Football." It is somewhat similar to a popular sport played up here in Canada called "Canadian Football", though with its smaller fields, less players, four "downs" instead of three -- and of course no single-point "rouge" -- it's surprising to me that anyone can actually stay awake long enough to even get to enjoy the blessed relief of the "half-time show". Regardless though, we have planned to prepare some traditional American cuisine to fortify and sustain ourselves during this trial: deep-fried glazed chicken "wings" and something called "nachos". And even if the athletic contest itself should prove to be less than "super", I understand that comedian Will Ferrell will be hosting a series of Norwegian travelogues during the many scheduled automobile commercials. So, all in all, not a total loss!

__________________
John

Was CAR-ACF# S 337
Was NAR# 91049
Was SAM# 0323

Life begins when the countdown reaches zero!

Enjoy The Big Game (TM)! I canceled our Hulu Live TV after both teams my wife and I are fans of were eliminated - without some kind of stake in the game I just don’t have much interest. Quite frankly the hype leaves me shaking my head, this is typically not a very good game since both teams tend to play not to lose even more so than a regular season NFL game. And I ignore all the hoopla surrounding the game - 8+ hours of pregame, sappy human interest stuff about the players, halftime shows (I don’t recall ever watching the whole thing except maybe the big band show in 1980 or when what’s left of The Who performed), the goofy commercials...not sure the NFL gets much traction with the once a year casual viewer by making such a big deal about all the peripheral stuff. But no worries - it’s really cool on the technical side that SpaceX makes it possible for lots of people to experience this with a bunch of (relatively) inexpensive LEO satellites!

Thanks!

And I suspect it's just like you described for all but the really die hard sports fans among us -- once our favoured "home" or "alumni" team is out of the race for the championship, our interest can quickly drop off. For example, I know that up here in Canada once the last remaining Canadian team is invariably (inevitably?) eliminated from the National (sic) Hockey League's Stanley Cup playoffs, we're all sort of like "Meh?" And the same can at least sometimes be said about MLB (Toronto Blue Jays!), the NBA (Toronto Raptors!) and so on.

That being said, there is that legendary mythos to the NFL's Super Bowl. I remember a personal incident many years ago now when my wife and I had invited our church's minister and his wife over for Sunday dinner. At almost the last minute the minister phoned to ask if they could possibly take a rain check on our dinner plans. Well of course, we said, but is everyone okay; is anything wrong? At which point the minister somewhat sheepishly explained that his wife (who like him was an ex-pat American) was a really, really big San Francisco 49ers football fan... and her team was playing in the Super Bowl that Sunday! We had a good laugh about that, and as it turns out San Francisco ended up narrowly beating Cincinnati 26-21 in that game! (A quick online check of the stats tells me that it was Super Bowl XVI, played on January 24, 1982 at the Silverdome.)

At any rate -- win, lose or draw -- under the current Covid/lockdown restrictions it will indeed be really great to take advantage of the benefits of Starlink's amazing space-based technology!

And hey, best wishes to Tom Brady for #10!

__________________
John

Was CAR-ACF# S 337
Was NAR# 91049
Was SAM# 0323

Life begins when the countdown reaches zero!

Enjoy!! There are times when any football is better than no football 😉

LOL! As it turns out, there was no football!

We had planned to stream the game from the CBS website (which was offering the stream for free); but lo and behold when we tried to access it we discovered that we were effectively geoblocked. Apparently the broadcast rights to the game up here in Canada were owned by the big multimedia telecom conglomerate that, ironically, we had just cancelled our ISP service with when we moved over to Starlink. And neither they nor their affiliates were offering the game for free, as you had to have either a regular paid cable TV subscription or a paid annual, monthly or one-time daily license for an alternative distribution service. Perhaps the, uh, judicious use of a VPN service might have helped get around the geoblock, but we don't happen to have one... at the moment. With the chicken wings getting colder by the minute my frustrated son was eventually able to source a very poor quality feed on YouTube; but after only about a minute or two into the action YouTube cut that channel's feed, citing the usual legal copyright infringement.

What's even more ironic though is that for some reason Starlink seems to be able to confuse our Google geolocation services. Sometimes when using the Chrome web browser, for instance, Google will think that we are located in the great state of Illinois and consequently will direct us to the American version of commercial web sites instead of the Canadian ones (e.g. Home Depot .com versus Home Depot .ca). That would have worked really nicely for us for yesterday's big game, of course; but unfortunately we were out of luck there. And our Google Chromecast is somehow convinced that we are living in "the 'Peg", a.k.a. Winnipeg Manitoba. Having visited there a couple of times in the past I can reasonably assert that no one in their right mind would voluntarily want to live there, what with the nasty summer mosquitoes and the sub-arctic winter weather! And yet, when I turn on my "smart" TV now the Chromecast display will inform me, like it did earlier today, that the outside temperature is a delightful -16.6°F / -27°C.

So, "better luck next year"?

__________________
John

Was CAR-ACF# S 337
Was NAR# 91049
Was SAM# 0323

Life begins when the countdown reaches zero!

Reading through the recaps and reviews it doesn’t look like you missed much, giving Tom Brady that much possession time and good field position is a recipe for disaster - read that the halftime show was a weird bit of a snooze too. Maybe next year will be a better experience 😉