Starlink

[Seevee]

How far from boat to house?

Thought I read it comes with 100 foot cable.... too much PIA putting the antenna half way and running either 2 cables or just pulling the one back and forth and just carrying the router back and forth?

Paul,
Thx, house is 97 feet from the antenna on the boat to my office, plus would like an additional 25 feet to the TV room.

I could easily run an underground cable, if it would work.
I'd like a permanent dish on the boat without having to remove it and drag it to the house. We go out quite a bit for short trips and would like to transition to internet in the house easily.



Right now I use my phone for internet on the boat, which is ok but slow at times.


Do you have Starlink?

 

[SteveK]

What about getting the ethernet adapter and running line from house to dock, plug in when boat is home.

 

[Seevee]

Question:


Does Starlink have a support number or email address? Without one or the other, it's really a no go.

 

[DegoRed]

Seevee, Your problem is a very simple one to fix and there is several ways to do so, just depends on your ability to watch YouTube and follow directions. Assume you have power full time on boat dock at your house.

A. You can get a 150ft starlink cable which is $93 on their website.
B. Starlink also sells an ethernet adapter which is $25, then you really dont need a 150ft starlink cable, you can just run a $9 cat5 cable however long you want it.
C. If I was you, think I would just leave Starlink on Boat and either just blast WiFi back at your house with a $50 UBNT antenna or use same antenna to pull WiFi into you house and attach antenna to separate router inside your house.
D. Starlink basically has zero support, yes they have an email address, but sometimes they get back to you in 48 hours and sometimes its 48 days. There are dudes in forum who are going on 3 months with no response to tickets. They got back to me in under 24 hours, but my issues was a simple billing problem.

Bottom line, you problem is a simple one to find a solution for.

 

[OldDan1943]

So, I'm pretty darn sure I'm not going to be getting the 'maritime' version of StarLink.
Source: https://www.starlink.com/maritime
- - - - -
High-speed, low-latency internet with up to 350 Mbps download while at sea. $5,000/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals.

Those are my thoughts too.

 

[Sababa]

Question:


Does Starlink have a support number or email address? Without one or the other, it's really a no go.

Nope, neither, but you can open a ticket by searching for a support topic and flagging the answer as not helpful. They’ve been quick to get back to me about account issues; but I haven’t tried on technical topics.

 

[magna 6882]

I am hopeful that the system is so simple the only issue one would have is did they pay there bill. I have not heard of anyone having problems with the system. The only questions i have seen come up is folks trying to game the system as in get service where there is a waiting list. It seems with just a dish and a router and point at the sky and the thing seems to work. I get mine tomorrow so will be able to give a better personal report. Hope to be online in less then 15 minutes.

 

[slowgoesit]

On distance from the router, we were on shore in Kasaan, Alaska, about 1/4 mile from the dock where our boat was docked and my wife was using our Starlink wifi from the boat. Not sure if it would make a difference in a more populated area, but I routinely use our wifi from the marina office, 400 to 500 feet from the boat.

 

[magna 6882]

Took about 10 minutes to get setup and online. Got about 130mb download while the wife was watching netflix. Only been up a couple hours but so far this thing is slick.I did a speed test on the boat today with the tmoble hotspot and got 6mb download and that was on the high speed data plan.

 

[Seevee]

Seevee, Your problem is a very simple one to fix and there is several ways to do so, just depends on your ability to watch YouTube and follow directions. Assume you have power full time on boat dock at your house.

A. You can get a 150ft starlink cable which is $93 on their website.
B. Starlink also sells an ethernet adapter which is $25, then you really dont need a 150ft starlink cable, you can just run a $9 cat5 cable however long you want it.
C. If I was you, think I would just leave Starlink on Boat and either just blast WiFi back at your house with a $50 UBNT antenna or use same antenna to pull WiFi into you house and attach antenna to separate router inside your house.
D. Starlink basically has zero support, yes they have an email address, but sometimes they get back to you in 48 hours and sometimes its 48 days. There are dudes in forum who are going on 3 months with no response to tickets. They got back to me in under 24 hours, but my issues was a simple billing problem.

Bottom line, you problem is a simple one to find a solution for.

Thx much for some detailed solutions... a few questions:
First, can you provide a link on Starlinks website for accessories, cable, adapter and perhaps the mesh router (which I don't quite understand, yet). Looked and looked and for the life of me couldn't find anything.


Is the Starlink cable like an ethernet cable, so I'd plug it in the router on the boat and plug it into a router in my office (like my Airport Extreme or similar, where it would broadcast wirelessly in the home).
Is the Cat 5 cable the same thing?


The UBNT antenna looks like more of a hassle and expensive. Would have to connect it to the boat router? and have a "receiver" of sorts in the house to distribute the signal wirelessly?


Thanks again... a good start. It's cheap enough for the potential benefit to strongly consider it.

 

[tpbrady]

Seevee,

Depending on the distance involved, another potential solution is WiFi to Ethernet adapter that I use to bridge my home Starlink system from the shop outside to my inside mesh network. This is what I used as it will also extend a wireless network.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D6JEMWS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Tom

 

[DegoRed]

@Seevee
Not 100% sure if you can access Starlink's web page to buy stuff, think you have to have an account, but here is the link either way Shop Starlink

The Starlink cable is just a CAT6 cable with proprietary connectors on it. Some people have managed to cut there's in pieces(dog, lawnmower, beavers, etc) and splice it back together and some have made their own.

Basically the dish comes with a cable attached to it, which the unattached end plugs into the Starlink router. You have to use the Starlink router, you can put it into by-pass mode and use your own, but it has to be connected to make dish work.

I use the UBNT antenna's for all kinds of different stuff, and they make about 100 different types, most people don't even know they can be used for all kinds of purposes. The way I explained it previously was only utilizing 1 antenna. These antenna's can push WiFi, they can pull in/suck WiFi, or you can put 2 together and make a bridge connection.

For example, I use these antenna's at my house to blast/push WiFi all over my 20 acre property so that I have WiFi everywhere on the property, you can use WiFi at my house 2000ft from my house.

Another example, when I am in my RV I stick one of these Antenna's on the window or outside somewhere and I can pull WiFi in from miles away, in this case I am sucking wifi in. Could do the same at Marina to suck WiFi into boat, however I have never found a Marina with decent WiFi so I don't bother.

Point being, a $50 antenna can solve 95% of your issues you described, and it plugs into your router where ever that might be located on Boat or House. You just have to tell the Antenna to push or pull, its not smart enough to figure it out on its own.

Obviously if you have 2 together you form a bridge where you could have one network on boat and one network in your house, I was simply trying to give you simple version. I have had some of these antennas working at my house for 10 years now and never have to touch them, so while you might think these are a hassle, they are truly idiot proof once you get them set up.

You mentioned Airport Extreme, since I wont touch anything made by Crapple, I do not know this device, but am assuming its a Router? If it is, then you couple probably configure it to Repeater Mode and it could suck WiFi from boat(Starlink) and re-distribute it in your house, but once again I have no idea how Airport Extreme works, just an assumption that it has a Repeater Mode.

Bottom line with Starlink, its a $600 toy that cost $125/month but it gives decent internet on your boat, rv, house, whatever. In my mind its kind of a must have for boats, but I can see how some feel the price tag is just too high.

 

[dannc]

Seevee,

Depending on the distance involved, another potential solution is WiFi to Ethernet adapter that I use to bridge my home Starlink system from the shop outside to my inside mesh network. This is what I used as it will also extend a wireless network.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D6JEMWS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Tom

I suspect the easiest thing for Seevee to do would be to use an extender such as the one in the link or use Starlink's version. We have been using network extenders, for our cell and DSL based Internet for years but I am going to try one of the Starlink mesh units to see how that works. Seems easy and fast to setup.

Later,
Dan

 

[Seevee]

@Seevee
Not 100% sure if you can access Starlink's web page to buy stuff, think you have to have an account, but here is the link either way Shop Starlink

The Starlink cable is just a CAT6 cable with proprietary connectors on it. Some people have managed to cut there's in pieces(dog, lawnmower, beavers, etc) and splice it back together and some have made their own.

Basically the dish comes with a cable attached to it, which the unattached end plugs into the Starlink router. You have to use the Starlink router, you can put it into by-pass mode and use your own, but it has to be connected to make dish work.

I use the UBNT antenna's for all kinds of different stuff, and they make about 100 different types, most people don't even know they can be used for all kinds of purposes. The way I explained it previously was only utilizing 1 antenna. These antenna's can push WiFi, they can pull in/suck WiFi, or you can put 2 together and make a bridge connection.

For example, I use these antenna's at my house to blast/push WiFi all over my 20 acre property so that I have WiFi everywhere on the property, you can use WiFi at my house 2000ft from my house.

Another example, when I am in my RV I stick one of these Antenna's on the window or outside somewhere and I can pull WiFi in from miles away, in this case I am sucking wifi in. Could do the same at Marina to suck WiFi into boat, however I have never found a Marina with decent WiFi so I don't bother.

Point being, a $50 antenna can solve 95% of your issues you described, and it plugs into your router where ever that might be located on Boat or House. You just have to tell the Antenna to push or pull, its not smart enough to figure it out on its own.

Obviously if you have 2 together you form a bridge where you could have one network on boat and one network in your house, I was simply trying to give you simple version. I have had some of these antennas working at my house for 10 years now and never have to touch them, so while you might think these are a hassle, they are truly idiot proof once you get them set up.

You mentioned Airport Extreme, since I wont touch anything made by Crapple, I do not know this device, but am assuming its a Router? If it is, then you couple probably configure it to Repeater Mode and it could suck WiFi from boat(Starlink) and re-distribute it in your house, but once again I have no idea how Airport Extreme works, just an assumption that it has a Repeater Mode.

Bottom line with Starlink, its a $600 toy that cost $125/month but it gives decent internet on your boat, rv, house, whatever. In my mind its kind of a must have for boats, but I can see how some feel the price tag is just too high.

I've tried, for over an hour, to get onto the Shop Starlink page without success. The sign in / password I signed up with doesn't work, not a mistage. Tried to reset my password and set up a new account and got nowhere.. so I'm giving up for now, and hope to make it work later. So, for now, I can do NOTHING.... Grrrrrrrr....

 

[Sababa]

I think you have to be a current Starlink subscriber to shop for accessories on the site.

 

[Seevee]

I signed up for Starlink today, was fairly easy, and now I can assess their store.



Still confused about a few things:


First, the Starlink cable. Assume that's plugged into the Starlink router, and the other end would be plugged into a router in my house, like the Apple Airport Extreme which simply takes the internet feed from an Ethernet cable and distributes it wirelessly in the house.


The Antenna. Would I have one on my house, connected to a router like the Apple above, aim it at the boat and it would pick up the internet? I have a covered dock that would be between the boat and the house and wonder if that would interfere.


The Mesh. Does it simply pick up the signal from the boat and spread it wirelessly in the house. Is it connected to anything?



I need to KISS. I'm NOT a techie.

 

[dannc]

...
First, the Starlink cable. Assume that's plugged into the Starlink router, and the other end would be plugged into a router in my house, like the Apple Airport Extreme which simply takes the internet feed from an Ethernet cable and distributes it wirelessly in the house.
...

The Starlink box has five main items, Dishy, it's base, the cable, the power cord and the Starlink WiFi router. It is really simple to setup:

• Power cord goes into the Starlink WiFi router.
• Dishy slips into it's base.
• The cable plugs into the Starlink WiFi router and dishy.

Wait a few minutes for Dishy to align itself and for the network to power up.



The hard part can be in mounting Dishy and getting the cable from Dishy to the Starlink WiFi router. This is took me hours to do and I am still not finished. I did not have the pipe mount when the Starlink box arrived so I cobbled together a temporary mounting solution. The pipe mount I needed arrived but I won't mess with it until it cools down outside.

If you want to connect Starlink to your existing network, you have to buy an Ethernet adapter for the Starlink WiFi router.

...
The Mesh. Does it simply pick up the signal from the boat and spread it wirelessly in the house. Is it connected to anything?
...

Yes, the mesh device would just pick up the WiFi signal at the boat and extend the communication to the house. We have been using WiFi extenders in the house, but they appear as a separate network. The Mesh node will show just one network which would mean your connections in the house and boat would be the same from your devices point of view.

The advantage of using the Starlink Mesh Node is you just plug it into a power outlet and use the Starlink application on your phone to enable. There might be better Mesh solutions than using Starlink's Mesh Node but better depends on one's needs. We will just buy Starlink's Mesh Node. See this link for more information:

https://www.starlinkhardware.com/starlink-mesh-nodes-mesh-networks-made-easy/

The only issue would be if the mesh device cannot pick up the signal from the Starlink router on the boat and I would think that would be mostly dependent on the house construction material.

Our Starlink router is in the middle of the house and we can pick up the WiFi roughly 100 feet from the house. The signal has to go through the brick exterior, a six inch exterior wall, two interior walls, and a wall cabinet full of cans. We do have big windows which are metal glad wood. Not sure if that helps or hinders the WiFi signal.

We are going to get one of the Starlink mesh units to see if it improves performance on one end of the house, we don't really have a performance issue, but I am curious if the network speeds will improve, and we want to see how far WiFi will go outside the house.

Later,
Dan

 

[DegoRed]

First, the Starlink cable. Assume that's plugged into the Starlink router, and the other end would be plugged into a router in my house, like the Apple Airport Extreme which simply takes the internet feed from an Ethernet cable and distributes it wirelessly in the house.

This is a bad Assumption, you will need the Ethernet Adapter if you want to plug anything from Starlink into anything else, Starlink does not plug into or out of anything.

My recommendation is buy the Ethernet Adapter and the 2" pipe adapter, even if you don't think you need them right now, you probably will need both at some point and the price is fairly cheap.

 

[Helmsman]

This is a bit of a qualitative discussion. I would recommend an Eero mesh router. The advantage to the Starlink mesh router is simplicity. Also, it’s disadvantage. I have the Eero and their support has been great. They also support IPv6 which helps future proof it somewhat. The easiest way to “connect” it would be wirelessly. That cuts the megabytes per second roughly in half. The best way would be to run a cable and use the Ethernet connector that Starlink supplies for the boat side. The other end would just connect to the Eero. If service is slow to the other side of the house, just add another Eero. The Eero has three channels. The two the Starlink has, and another used by multiple Eeros to communicate with each other.

 

[Seevee]

This is a bit of a qualitative discussion. I would recommend an Eero mesh router. The advantage to the Starlink mesh router is simplicity. Also, it’s disadvantage. I have the Eero and their support has been great. They also support IPv6 which helps future proof it somewhat. The easiest way to “connect” it would be wirelessly. That cuts the megabytes per second roughly in half. The best way would be to run a cable and use the Ethernet connector that Starlink supplies for the boat side. The other end would just connect to the Eero. If service is slow to the other side of the house, just add another Eero. The Eero has three channels. The two the Starlink has, and another used by multiple Eeros to communicate with each other.

Thanks, great advise.


Question: If I did the above and got a Ethernet connector from Starlink, will that connect to any ethernet plug? I'd like to run a short cable to make a connection point on the side of the boat, where I could simply plug in the main ethernet cable to the Eero and not have to run a cable thru a window or door. Simple, like hookin up shore power.


Only other issue, if I take the boat out solo, then the GF has no internet so have to find a simple solution for that, but I can deal with that.

 

[dannc]

...
Question: If I did the above and got a Ethernet connector from Starlink, will that connect to any ethernet plug? I'd like to run a short cable to make a connection point on the side of the boat, where I could simply plug in the main ethernet cable to the Eero and not have to run a cable thru a window or door. Simple, like hookin up shore power.
...

Yes, the Starlink Ethernet adapter allows the use of a standard Ethernet plug.

Later,
Dan

 

[Helmsman]

Thanks, great advise.


Question: If I did the above and got a Ethernet connector from Starlink, will that connect to any ethernet plug? I'd like to run a short cable to make a connection point on the side of the boat, where I could simply plug in the main ethernet cable to the Eero and not have to run a cable thru a window or door. Simple, like hookin up shore power.


Only other issue, if I take the boat out solo, then the GF has no internet so have to find a simple solution for that, but I can deal with that.

Yes, the Ethernet connector is for connecting to another router.

Edit: Sorry, didn’t see Dan’s reply.

 

[Seevee]

Got my Starlink and have a question....


Is there a way to unplug the cable from the antenna, in hopes that it's a smaller plug and would be much easier to thread thru hole and conduit?

 

[Toadhall]

Yes.
Remove the antenna from the mount. Gently pull the cable strait down.

Much smaller plug will come out.

 

[Seevee]

thx!

 

[bowball]

Are there any stainless poll mounts found yet?

I had one custom made for a rail mount.

Was converted to 12 volt and got rid of their router. Used PoE (power over Ethernet). Plugged it in as a WAN source to my peplink router, which uses my boats two wifi access points.

140mbs down in Sidney BC. 4mbs up.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

Question. Seen a lot of conversation here and other sites about disabling the drive motors or leaving them able.

Why would you disable the drive motors?

This would void the warranty?

 

[SteveK]

Question. Seen a lot of conversation here and other sites about disabling the drive motors or leaving them able.

Why would you disable the drive motors?

This would void the warranty?

Good question.
I read here or other places that the originator of doing this claimed no clipped service like switching TV stations. Steady signal but not always the same strength.
First I have to get one and try it as is before jumping into the hack mode.

 

[magna 6882]

i haven't seen the unit re-aim after it is turned on so i dont think the drive motors do anything unless you ask to stow or re-deploy. Its not like a tv dish that is constantly moving. The thing seems to get signal no matter where its pointed but i can get a little more speed if i stow then un stow it will look in a different location. Been cruising desolation for the last week and its worked flawlessly. I was even able to give others in out party service since the cell phone service was done.

 

[Sababa]

Supposed to give better connectivity in motion or swinging at anchor having the dish just point straight up. I use mine enough at the dock that I value having it be able to point away from pilings and other obstructions. I am hoping they will do a software change at some point that would allow locking it straight up without having to disable the motors, like the stow command. Definitely will void your warranty to disable them.