[Starlink] disaster prep

David Lang david at lang.hm
Thu Oct 10 19:50:15 EDT 2024


In reading reports of the hurricane aftermath, I ran across one post where one 
house in the area had a starlink and a generator, so people in the area would 
make daily trips to the "starlink house" to connect to the outside worlk, 
sometimes getting messages from their neighbors who couldn't make the hike 
themselves.

One thing that us techies need to think about is disaster prep, not just having 
a starlink around, but also how to expand the footprint of the 'starlink house' 
to cover more area.

I expect this writeup will not surprise most on this list, but I'm putting it 
out in the hope that it helps

As a quick how-to.

don't try to setup a 'mesh' network if you can avoid it. Wifi networks have 
problems when all the stations on the network can't hear each other (hidden 
transmitter problem), so when you can, wiring between nodes is the best bet.

In a disaster situation like this, I would setup pairs of access points talking 
to each other on 5GHz channels, with the APs being as high as possible, with 
directional antennas if you have them, even simple reflectors (panel, corner, or 
parabola) help a lot and can be rigged up with aluminum foil and coat hangers. 
This can double (or better) the range of the link for very little effort or 
cost.

Then have the users connect to the remote APs on 2.4GHz

wire the APs in any one location together and don't reuse the 5GHz channels.

This will let you extend the network out hop by hop, and with other electronics 
down, you should be able to get quite a bit of range.

Sharing like this, you aren't giving a lot of bandwidth to any one person, but 
it gets basic connectivity to a lot of people

Most of the nodes can run factory firmware, but you may need to load OpenWRT on 
some nodes to be able to make them connect to a remote wifi as their 'wan' 
connection.

Many APs will run on 12v, so they can be powered by a car battery for quite a 
while.

(frankly, I have't used stock firmware on APs is so many years that I don't know 
how hard it would be to have them connect to an wifi for their wan port any 
longer)

David Lang


More information about the Starlink mailing list