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Remote Cabin / Portable High Speed Internet Beta - Tesla in the Sky - Starlink

Teach me to go off my memory. I thought it had made it here. I may give it a try next year when it arrives.

Jerry
 
A coworker of mine north of Denver signed up for beta on day 1 - and still has not received his hardware. I'm really looking forward to the mobile possibilities - but for now since it's tied to an address I'm waiting to see. I have gigabit fiber to my address currently - but want options for a remote cabin.
 
Are there any more reports on Starlink speeds and reliability. Are there any Alaska users out there yet? I'm currently with Matanuska Telephone Association and the prices are fairly high with low speeds and frequent dropped connections. Just trying to explore changing carriers.

Jerry

I've been using it exclusively for a number of months now (Arkansas) it keeps getting better and better. I am able to do the Hump Day programs with livestreaming and zoom with it with no issues - normally a problem with the higher ranging sats.

sj
 
As a data point, the FAA's Weather Camera Program management is currently installing two Starlink systems in western Montana to beta test these devices as transmitters for Aviation Weather Cameras in remote sites. Both these systems will be on the road system, but in locales where there is no internet (Alaska isn't the only state with a lot of "coverage gaps" for internet) coverage. The Weather camera folks from Alaska are scheduled to come down here and get these up and running to test the technology.

If it turns out this technology works in these mountain passes, the idea is the Starlink system may offer a much less expensive solution to provide Aviation Weather Cameras in truly remote passes and airstrips, etc. Currently, a few Alaska passes have camera systems which use the Iridium system for transmission, but that is VERY expensive data transmission.

And, BTW, Montana now has a growing number of Aviation Weather Camera sites live, the latest being Bozeman Pass. And more to come!

MTV
 
On another note, they are about to release a new more compact dish which will be nice.

sj
 
On another note, they are about to release a new more compact dish which will be nice.

sj

That will be nice. I see the size and motion required of the dish as a significant issue for a remote installation. Smaller is better when it comes to wind, or as someone noted earlier, maybe devising a "data transparent" dome.

MTV

MTV
 
My son bought the hardware and installed it as his house in rural Montana. He quit it after a couple of months. The already available internet through our phone company was more reliable and faster. Perhaps it has improved since then.
 
I have been a Starlink beta tester since July here in N/W Ontario, it is amazing and seems to only be getting better. Download speeds are at times 60 times greater than the best the former company could provide (which was 5 download), even at the worst during the recent heavy snow storm we had earlier this week, Starlink speeds were still 50 download. Operations like Zoom and streaming without buffering are no longer a problem. They told us up front (beta testers) that we are the guinea pigs, the very few outages that I have experienced were due to Starlink tweaking on the system and even at that they were short lived. There is nothing out there available that does not come through a dedicated cable than can compare to Starlink speeds, the extra cost is well worth the service it provides.
 
My son bought the hardware and installed it as his house in rural Montana. He quit it after a couple of months. The already available internet through our phone company was more reliable and faster. Perhaps it has improved since then.

Speaking of "the phone company" I was doing a crane job at the big old Ma Bell building (all brick, no windows, 3 stories, all packed with rows of whatever these things are in the pic) in town a few days ago, and on my way up to the roof got to walk thru the still packed with equipment building. I can't remember the last time I used a hard wired phone, but this place was humming right along, business as usual. Back to satellites....
 

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I looked into the Beta a few months back, and could have signed up at the time. (I should have!) When ATT finally admitted they could no longer repair the copper DSL switch that supplies my home with a whopping 2 Mbps service, I signed up for Starlink. $99 deposit (today) toward the ±$400 hardware cost when they have capacity to add you. I'm told late 2022 now for my area. Sigh. I'm paying 2X their rate for a Verizon-based solution (30-50 Mbps) in the interim. I just could not go back to the slow DSL solution.
 
When I signed up a year ago, they said service in my area summer of '21. Then that estimate slid to fall of '21. Now the latest estimate is summer of '22.

Meanwhile, I just cancelled my order for a Tesla truck, which is 2 years late (and counting). I think I see a pattern here.
 
If you can get any cell service look into a waveform external antennae. I put up the directional one (around 200$) pointed at my closest cell tower and now have blazing fast 200+mb download speed with T-mobiles internet hotspot. Before it was very spotty and inconsistent.
 
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The problem with this is data caps and bandwidth throttling, as with any cell based plan. if you have multiple people or do real work remotely, it's really not hard to blow through these data caps, typically at 40G or so if you have the most expensive "unlimited" data plan. They will cap your high speed at 5G if you have cheaper plans - and then you are sipping through the 3G straw after that. That's like 1 high def movie.

If you can get any cell service look into a waveform external antennae. I put up the directional one (around 200$) pointed at my closest cell tower and now have blazing fast 200+mb download speed with T-mobiles internet hotspot. Before it was very spotty and inconsistent.
 
We haven't noticed that, watch netflix and YT TV, several Iphones and couple laptops.
I guess what I'm saying is if you can get 1 bar cell signal you can greatly increase that usability with a good directional rooftop antennae.
 
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Ordered Starlink in Nov, came last month. Finally got it out to the new airpark land in Wyoming this weekend to test it out while we dug test holes to see how much rock we need to deal with for runway construction.

Set up was easy. Plug it in and press setup on the app.
Honda 2000i generator. I made a wifi call from 100yds away.
No cell service, no problem.
f5f320d90d97eedbe285576bd2e2b996.jpg



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
We won't be getting it here for a while (years?).

I would find it very attractive IF I could move it from the house in town to our cabin on a seasonal basis. Apparently, that's not possible (yet?), because it will fail to connect if you move outside your "cell".

It's certainly small enough to be transported in a PA-12/18. I understand that the heater can be disconnected to save power if you're off the grid. Portability is the key factor for me, speed is secondary.
 
We won't be getting it here for a while (years?).

I would find it very attractive IF I could move it from the house in town to our cabin on a seasonal basis. Apparently, that's not possible (yet?), because it will fail to connect if you move outside your "cell".

It's certainly small enough to be transported in a PA-12/18. I understand that the heater can be disconnected to save power if you're off the grid. Portability is the key factor for me, speed is secondary.

Roaming is now working as I understand it.


Sent from my iPad using SuperCub.Org mobile app
 
I just set ours in the yard to try it out.... within 10 minutes of pulling it out of the box, we're blasting like never before! Within a couple hours, it was finding another satellite it liked better and now it's settled down. I love it!
John
 
We have been running Starlink at home since July, speeds have been fabulous compared to our other option. I pre-ordered a unit for the remote cabin whenever service became available in that area, got the email 3 weeks ago to send money and received the unit last week. The new dish is rectangular, the home dish is round, looks to be some other changes too, but won't be able to try it out until we can get to the cabin after ice out. Amazing the changes we have seen in technology in such a short period of time...
 
Speaking of "the phone company" I was doing a crane job at the big old Ma Bell building (all brick, no windows, 3 stories, all packed with rows of whatever these things are in the pic) in town a few days ago, and on my way up to the roof got to walk thru the still packed with equipment building. I can't remember the last time I used a hard wired phone, but this place was humming right along, business as usual. Back to satellites....

I think nowadays, even if the phone call is cellular at either end,
the call still goes through land lines at some point.
All those racks are switch gear, very sensitive to heat.
I did a lot of HVAC work for General Telephone & Pacific Bell down in southern Calif many years ago.
All the switching stations had fully redundant air conditioning systems,
so in case one crapped out the switch gear wouldn't overheat & shut down.
They also had two (redundant) diesel-powered emergency generators,
so they could stay in service in case of a power outage.
 
Has anyone tried starlink at Johnson Creek yet? Very challenging scenario with the mountains on both sides of the valley.
 
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