Starlink Questions

[etex211]

I've just started taking a look at Starlink internet, and I'm in the very early stages of my research. Ever since we bought our Jayco fifth wheel in 2013, I've used a Dish tailgater on a ladder mount for our TV service, and it has served me very well. Our internet service in our camper has been limited to whatever we can get by using our cell phones as mobile hot spots. In the infield at a Nascar track, that service disappears for most of the weekend.

At home, we have transitioned from Dish service to cable service, and now to strictly streaming services. Streaming services are portable, so you can take whatever you have at home on the road with you, but only if you have the internet service to support it.

That's what's got my Starlink research started. Replacing my DISH service with Starlink service offers several advantages.

I'm kicking around various ideas in my head about how to put a Starlink antenna on a pole that is mounted to the fifth wheel hitch at the front of the camper. I'll be able to come up with something there and make it work.

My questions for now are about how the Starlink antenna itself works...

1. I assume most people using Starlink in an RV are using the Starlink Mini. Is this true?
2. It appears that the Starlink Mini has a built in router. Are most people using that built in router, or are they using an external router?
3. Will the Mini's built in router carry enough signal to reach all areas of the camper if it is mounted above the camper at the very front. Our 351RLTS is about 38 feet long overall.
4. Will the Starlink Mini support enough data to stream three TVs simultaneously?

Thanks. I'll probably have more questions later.

 

[FloHauler]

The Starlink mini has both Wi-Fi and an Ethernet port for a wired connection. One thing to remember is you have to have a clear view of the sky for reception, probably like a dish. Throughput with a clear sky view can exceed 100meg down, better than some cable internet connections.

 

[craigav]

I have a Gen 2 and got it shortly after they came out, really a great upgrade for rv'ing (starlink) if the internet is needed. With the Gen2, the wifi portion is close to where you plug it in where it has a dedicated wifi\antenna power input box. I often plug in the antenna wifi\power box into one of the storage areas that has an electrical outlet and just leave the wifi in the storage compartment. With the Gen2 setup the wifi itself is very close to the RV and the wifi signal is great in the RV whereas the mini seems like an easier setup but could be an issue if you have to place it away from the RV ~35 or more feet away as the wifi is at the antenna. ~CA

 

[etex211]

After doing some more reading, I believe the Gen3 is probably a better option than the mini. It performs better and is cheaper to purchase. The extra size and the addition of it's external router will not be issues for me.

 

[txloser]

I think you’ll be happy with it. We’ve had ours for a little under a year and it works great. I keep my router hard mounted to a wall in my basement storage. Works perfect in and around my 36’ trailer. The dish itself go’s on a pole attached my ladder or on top of a plastic storage bin depending on length of stay, obstructions etc.

 

[Jim1348]

Following.

 

[ajontheroad]

Have had SL since beta. New to RV'ing, however I have had several Starlink kits. #1 problem will be line-of-sight. The rest of the nitty gritty details are decent enough to use out of the box, and easily upgradable, but if your dish can't see the sky, you're not getting anything. In this case I run a small computer (RPi4 w/fan) that runs Plex and some decent storage and you have all stored shows right there.

Question answers:

1) No idea myself, I will run the high performance kit (3rd gen), on the Residential with Portability plan. ~$145/mo. You can activate and deactivate the portability option when you aren't using it. It's basically the same thing as the Roam Unlimited except I have the hardware already. Looks like new hardware purchases default to the mini, unless you choose something else (more expensive as you go).

2) Curious why you ask about the router. These things are for 'ease of use', so if you'd like to put the dish in bypass mode and run another router, that begs the second question of, why do you need a non-stock router? Wifi security? Throughput? Reliability? Compatibility with older devices? The supplied router w/wifi is decent for 15 or more devices. The Gen3 one will give you faster Wifi rates if your client devices can do it. (New macbooks etc..) Both options do work well, supplied router is plug-and-play, no tears, bypass mode with external can be your paradise if that's how you roll. Performance on stock router and Wifi are decent.

3) Above the camper and at front. This seems like a decent choice. Wifi does not go through heavy objects, especially cement, very well, through camper walls and such I would suspect there is no issues. Other competing signals would be more troublesome. Some are also directional, turning it around 180 degress sometimes helps. Playing around with it with a signal strength meter, the starlink app has one built in, it will show you how far the range gets when you walk around. You can make adjustments to things based on this. WiFi Coverage

4) This question has many answers, due to the quality of video you are watching. Standard wifi is basically 802.11ac (gen2 routers) wifi6, 802.11ax is in the Gen3 routers. Here's a blurb from Google AI about the speeds. Make sure your client devices actually support Wifi6 and are in good range.

Wi-Fi 6, officially known as 802.11ax, is the next generation of Wi-Fi technology. It's designed to improve speed, efficiency, and capacity, especially in dense environments where many devices are connected simultaneously. Wi-Fi 6 offers a maximum throughput of 9.6 Gbps, a significant increase from the 3.5 Gbps maximum of Wi-Fi 5

 

[etex211]

2) Curious why you ask about the router. These things are for 'ease of use', so if you'd like to put the dish in bypass mode and run another router, that begs the second question of, why do you need a non-stock router? Wifi security? Throughput? Reliability? Compatibility with older devices? The supplied router w/wifi is decent for 15 or more devices. The Gen3 one will give you faster Wifi rates if your client devices can do it. (New macbooks etc..) Both options do work well, supplied router is plug-and-play, no tears, bypass mode with external can be your paradise if that's how you roll. Performance on stock router and Wifi are decent.

I've read that the range of the router of the Starlink Mini might not be as far as other routers. If I mount the device in the front of the camper near the roofline, then the main TV in the living room will be about 40 feet away and through several walls.

 

[435-fht]

My questions for now are about how the Starlink antenna itself works...

1. I assume most people using Starlink in an RV are using the Starlink Mini. Is this true?

My RV came with a Flat Hi Performance antennae mounted on the roof. The only drawback to this location is blockage from tree's can limit Starlink's ability to connect. If my antennae was not fixed to my roof, I could easily sit the antennae away form trees.

I saw somebody mounted an antennae inside their car with bungy cords. The antennae was aimed out their moonroof.

2. It appears that the Starlink Mini has a built in router. Are most people using that built in router, or are they using an external router?

Mine came with an external router.

3. Will the Mini's built in router carry enough signal to reach all areas of the camper if it is mounted above the camper at the very front. Our 351RLTS is about 38 feet long overall.

My router is factory mounted in a basement storage bay, and I could connect to the internet on my laptop while sitting in my home, and my RV parked in the driveway.

4. Will the Starlink Mini support enough data to stream three TVs simultaneously?

I assume it will. It has simultaneously supported two TV's and a laptop surfing the net.

 

[435-fht]

I also want to add it was nice a few weeks ago, sitting at our seasonal campsite, down by the river, watching motorcycle racing streaming through Peacock on an outdoor TV. Starlink made this possible.

Close to Black Friday, look for streaming deals. I was able to get a one year Peacock subscription for $19.99.

 

[Rodney27505]

We have had Starlink since the beta, at home first and then in the RV when we went full time 4 years ago. For most people, the cheaper Gen 3 standard dish is probably fine and the Starlink router will work fine. Ours is mounted in a cabinet in the front, wires run down into the underbelly and then outside thru a weatherproof R45 female to female. I bought a cheap Amazon Basics speaker stand, a pole mount kit from Amazon and a 15M cable. With that setup, I can move it front to back and side to side to the location with the best view of the sky. We had a flat high performance dish mounted on the front of our last RV and it usually worked ok, but we did have some issues in a couple of campgrounds with trees being over the front. The current setup gives a lot more flexibility

 

[ajontheroad]

My RV came with a Flat Hi Performance antennae mounted on the roof. The only drawback to this location is blockage from tree's can limit Starlink's ability to connect. If my antennae was not fixed to my roof, I could easily sit the antennae away form trees.

I saw somebody mounted an antennae inside their car with bungy cords. The antennae was aimed out their moonroof.



Mine came with an external router.



My router is factory mounted in a basement storage bay, and I could connect to the internet on my laptop while sitting in my home, and my RV parked in the driveway.


I assume it will. It has simultaneously supported two TV's and a laptop surfing the net.

I was curious why they went to a fixed based model, for some reason my mind thinks the articulating version on a stand is better? I guess it's extended range is about the same as the range of motion on the moving dish?

 

[Rodney27505]

The stationary dishes are much cheaper to make, Starlink was subsidizing about half of the cost of the dishes that moved. Many more satellites have been added so the dish doesn't need as wide of a field of view and they added a "align" prompt to the app to show you where to point the dish. Replacing motors with "hey we will just got the human to move it" brought the cost down to the point they are breaking even on the dishes.