Starlink Pilot

[Mito Man]

I don't think the odd bit of bird crap will affect it too much, surely it's like any other dish. Except as the satellites are not in geostationary orbit the dish is constantly panning around - albeit slowly. I think the real test will be how long the motors last and what will happen in freezing rain!

[mik]

But other dishes generally collect and then focus rays onto a collector.

I dunno. I guess someone thought of this before me.

[Ascender]

111Mbps isn't too shabby!

They seem to be improving the resilience and reliability of the service all the time. I was hoping it would reach here this year but its been delayed to next year which I guess is to be expected given the ongoing global shortages of everything.

I think the device heats up a bit when the ambient temperature drops below a certain level to hopefully keep everything free of ice, snow etc.

[tim]

2.5 up is shit though

[Mito Man]

I've noticed something pretty cool, pulled up this map
https://satellitemap.space
Start doing a speedtest as the satellite comes across Cornwall, you can see the speed massively increase up to over 200mbps as it arrives over Kent 10 seconds later. Then it slows again as it crosses the channel into France. Timing it perfectly got me...


Generally it's around 60mbps when a satellite is hundreds of miles away, then it accelerates to 200 and goes back to 60 by which point the next one is in range. Clever stuff.

[Ascender]

2.5 up is shit though

Yeah... not sure why its so low in that particular case, its been much higher on other ones I've seen.

They've recently been enabling comms between strings of satellites which in theory should mean that speed will be more consistent and not dependent on a single string.

[Mito Man]

There’s actually not enough satellites directly overhead this corner of England, hence I had to lie about the location to get it to actually work. It’s pretty impressive that it’s managing a consistent connection under the circumstances - most of the time it’s connected to a string that’s going over the midlands or Paris

[Ascender]

Just got the email to say I can now order my kit which is great timing as our BT broadband connection has been getting worse and worse with dropouts and they have no idea what's causing it.

Just need to work out where to mount the dish and the cable routing etc.

[Simon]

Good timing also as they've just lost 40 satellites. LoL.

[Ascender]

Good timing also as they've just lost 40 satellites. LoL.

It can't be any worse than what we have with BT! Even when the connection isn't dropping, with me on video calls, the wife doing her uni course and two teenagers on a 23M connection, it never goes well.

[mik]

Good timing also as they've just lost 40 satellites. LoL.

Clumsy. Anyone checked down the back of Elon’s couch?

[mik]

Wow - I just realised they actually lost them as opposed to just losing communication with them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60317806

[Ascender]

Wow - I just realised they actually lost them as opposed to just losing communication with them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60317806

That's an interesting read, I did wonder how you'd just lose some!

[Mito Man]

I always thought the solar radiation is what killed satellites, didn't realised that it actually has so much force that it causes sufficient drag to deorbit them

[DaveE]

Hugo Drax: How would have Oscar Wilde have put it? "To loose one aircraft would be an accident. To loose two would seem like carelessness."

[Mito Man]

As for Starlink internet it's worked pretty flawlessly. Doesn't like that very damp fog though nor does it work with Meta products very well (Instagram in particular).

[mik]

I think it’s that they hadn’t reached full orbit yet - and this drag increase will prevent that happening. Down they come.

[jamcg]

As for Starlink internet it's worked pretty flawlessly. Doesn't like that very damp fog though nor does it work with Meta products very well (Instagram in particular).

Neither does Vodafone 4g around here sometimes 5g is fine, as is virgin Wi-Fi, just the 4g

[Ascender]

I've been using a 5G router in the meantime for my work stuff and it does seem quite patchy and weather-dependent despite having a good signal.

Starlink is expensive, but will easily be worth if it its reliable as its hard to work like this when most meetings are on camera now. A legitimate company expense I think....

[Ascender]

Starlink has arrived a whole day early and its pretty amazing... if you're sitting in the same room as the new router. They've gone and removed the Ethernet port from their proprietary router, but the new adapters aren't currently shipping. Neither of the DSL routers I have can work as wireless repeaters, so I've ordered a cheap one as a stopgap.

Speed wise from the router, it seems to get 150-300Mbps which is a huge improvement over 20Mbps, but I just need to get that sent around the house now...