[Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Ulrich Speidel]

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In the aftermath of our cyclone here, I got dragged out for a bit of 
media comment and, downstream, a few questions came up on dishy power 
use. Here's what I know and can glean - comments welcome:

  * Starlink's own specs say 50-75 W "Average Power Usage":
    https://www.starlink.com/specifications. But that's average, not
    peak, and peak is what matters when people start recommending that
    Starlink could be run out of a small inverter and a car battery in a
    disaster.
  * Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
    cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses.
    That puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W
    range depending on battery voltage.
  * Our lab's "RV" subscription rectangular dishy & router regularly
    clocks in at around 80-100 W, and I've seen it go as high as 108 W
    on one occasion. I've also seen it go as low as 30 W for the first
    time last night.
  * I have a user report from an older round dishy owner having seen up
    to 200 W on occasion.
  * Assuming conservatively 90% inverter efficiency, that could mean up
    to ~120W and maybe more for the rectangular version and over 220 W
    for the circular one.
  * If dishy goes over cigarette lighter fuse capacity, people may lose
    their ability to charge phones from their car - also a critical
    capability in a disaster.
      o Not everyone takes kindly to the suggestion that advising
        inverter + car battery use could potentially be counterproductive.
  * So, what's the peak power use you have seen on your version of dishy?
  * It appears that the current mode of operation here is that dishy
    uses several satellites in parallel if these can all see a gateway
    and have capacity to carry traffic.
      o So for us in urban Auckland with few Starlink users in the cell
        and three gateways in the vicinity, our dishy is spoiled for
        choice and usually gets to use maybe three or more satellites at
        once. That takes a corresponding amount of power but also means
        great data rates a lot of the time.
      o For a rural user with more Starlink users in the cell and
        further away from gateways, the satellites that the cell can see
        and that  can also see a gateway may be fewer in number. This
        means dishy only gets to talk to maybe one or two birds at a
        time and so uses a lot less power, and you get more average data
        rates there.
  * If this is so, then it begs a question:
      o If Starlink could cap the number of satellites dishy can use in
        an emergency area, they would be able to keep your fuse intact.
        Should they aim for that, even if it means that you might see
        lower data rates in a situation when many people depend on one unit?

Starlink is currently being touted as THE comms solution for emergencies 
as large swathes of NZ's northern and eastern North Island remain 
without terrestrial or mobile Internet coverage after cyclone Gabrielle. 
This is the outage map of one of the larger mobile phone providers just 
for these areas:

Most of these are due to power outages to sites, but there are quite a 
few backhaul cable issues as well.

One of the biggest problems is that electronic payment systems don't 
work without Internet. In our largely cashless society, this is leading 
to situations where emergency services can't refuel their vehicles 
because their fuel cards won't work, supermarkets and other stores can't 
sell anything because customers have no means of paying, and the air 
force is flying in hard cash in order to help the locals buy food.

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz  
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************



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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Nathan Owens]

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I ran a Round Dishy in my car for a long time, along with the router, using
a 300W inverter. My car is rated for 12A continuous, 16A peak. Per my
Kill-A-Watt, it drew on the order of 30-50W, sometimes spiking to 80-90W
when obstructed/booting. My inverter is 90% efficient, and never tripped my
car 12v E-fuse. The V3 dish is more efficient, and uses less power.

On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:08 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> In the aftermath of our cyclone here, I got dragged out for a bit of media
> comment and, downstream, a few questions came up on dishy power use. Here's
> what I know and can glean - comments welcome:
>
>    - Starlink's own specs say 50-75 W "Average Power Usage":
>    https://www.starlink.com/specifications. But that's average, not peak,
>    and peak is what matters when people start recommending that Starlink could
>    be run out of a small inverter and a car battery in a disaster.
>    - Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
>    cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses. That
>    puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W range
>    depending on battery voltage.
>    - Our lab's "RV" subscription rectangular dishy & router regularly
>    clocks in at around 80-100 W, and I've seen it go as high as 108 W on one
>    occasion. I've also seen it go as low as 30 W for the first time last night.
>    - I have a user report from an older round dishy owner having seen up
>    to 200 W on occasion.
>    - Assuming conservatively 90% inverter efficiency, that could mean up
>    to ~120W and maybe more for the rectangular version and over 220 W for the
>    circular one.
>    - If dishy goes over cigarette lighter fuse capacity, people may lose
>    their ability to charge phones from their car - also a critical capability
>    in a disaster.
>       - Not everyone takes kindly to the suggestion that advising
>       inverter + car battery use could potentially be counterproductive.
>       - So, what's the peak power use you have seen on your version of
>    dishy?
>    - It appears that the current mode of operation here is that dishy
>    uses several satellites in parallel if these can all see a gateway and have
>    capacity to carry traffic.
>    - So for us in urban Auckland with few Starlink users in the cell and
>       three gateways in the vicinity, our dishy is spoiled for choice and usually
>       gets to use maybe three or more satellites at once. That takes a
>       corresponding amount of power but also means great data rates a lot of the
>       time.
>       - For a rural user with more Starlink users in the cell and further
>       away from gateways, the satellites that the cell can see and that  can also
>       see a gateway may be fewer in number. This means dishy only gets to talk to
>       maybe one or two birds at a time and so uses a lot less power, and you get
>       more average data rates there.
>    - If this is so, then it begs a question:
>       - If Starlink could cap the number of satellites dishy can use in
>       an emergency area, they would be able to keep your fuse intact. Should they
>       aim for that, even if it means that you might see lower data rates in a
>       situation when many people depend on one unit?
>
> Starlink is currently being touted as THE comms solution for emergencies
> as large swathes of NZ's northern and eastern North Island remain without
> terrestrial or mobile Internet coverage after cyclone Gabrielle. This is
> the outage map of one of the larger mobile phone providers just for these
> areas:
>
> Most of these are due to power outages to sites, but there are quite a few
> backhaul cable issues as well.
>
> One of the biggest problems is that electronic payment systems don't work
> without Internet. In our largely cashless society, this is leading to
> situations where emergency services can't refuel their vehicles because
> their fuel cards won't work, supermarkets and other stores can't sell
> anything because customers have no means of paying, and the air force is
> flying in hard cash in order to help the locals buy food.
>
> --
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Aucklandu.speidel@auckland.ac.nz http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>

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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Nathan Owens]

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I should add, I can actually run the HP dish w/o the router using the same
setup, but when it's obstructed it spikes to ~190W AC, which if it lasts
more than 60s does trip my car E-Fuse. I'll be adding a small battery as a
buffer, which should be able to pull 150W DC from my car, and handle the HP
dish continuous draw of 65-95W.

On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:12 PM Nathan Owens <nathan@nathan.io> wrote:

> I ran a Round Dishy in my car for a long time, along with the router,
> using a 300W inverter. My car is rated for 12A continuous, 16A peak. Per my
> Kill-A-Watt, it drew on the order of 30-50W, sometimes spiking to 80-90W
> when obstructed/booting. My inverter is 90% efficient, and never tripped my
> car 12v E-fuse. The V3 dish is more efficient, and uses less power.
>
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:08 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
> starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>> In the aftermath of our cyclone here, I got dragged out for a bit of
>> media comment and, downstream, a few questions came up on dishy power use.
>> Here's what I know and can glean - comments welcome:
>>
>>    - Starlink's own specs say 50-75 W "Average Power Usage":
>>    https://www.starlink.com/specifications. But that's average, not
>>    peak, and peak is what matters when people start recommending that Starlink
>>    could be run out of a small inverter and a car battery in a disaster.
>>    - Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
>>    cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses. That
>>    puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W range
>>    depending on battery voltage.
>>    - Our lab's "RV" subscription rectangular dishy & router regularly
>>    clocks in at around 80-100 W, and I've seen it go as high as 108 W on one
>>    occasion. I've also seen it go as low as 30 W for the first time last night.
>>    - I have a user report from an older round dishy owner having seen up
>>    to 200 W on occasion.
>>    - Assuming conservatively 90% inverter efficiency, that could mean up
>>    to ~120W and maybe more for the rectangular version and over 220 W for the
>>    circular one.
>>    - If dishy goes over cigarette lighter fuse capacity, people may lose
>>    their ability to charge phones from their car - also a critical capability
>>    in a disaster.
>>       - Not everyone takes kindly to the suggestion that advising
>>       inverter + car battery use could potentially be counterproductive.
>>       - So, what's the peak power use you have seen on your version of
>>    dishy?
>>    - It appears that the current mode of operation here is that dishy
>>    uses several satellites in parallel if these can all see a gateway and have
>>    capacity to carry traffic.
>>    - So for us in urban Auckland with few Starlink users in the cell and
>>       three gateways in the vicinity, our dishy is spoiled for choice and usually
>>       gets to use maybe three or more satellites at once. That takes a
>>       corresponding amount of power but also means great data rates a lot of the
>>       time.
>>       - For a rural user with more Starlink users in the cell and
>>       further away from gateways, the satellites that the cell can see and that
>>       can also see a gateway may be fewer in number. This means dishy only gets
>>       to talk to maybe one or two birds at a time and so uses a lot less power,
>>       and you get more average data rates there.
>>    - If this is so, then it begs a question:
>>       - If Starlink could cap the number of satellites dishy can use in
>>       an emergency area, they would be able to keep your fuse intact. Should they
>>       aim for that, even if it means that you might see lower data rates in a
>>       situation when many people depend on one unit?
>>
>> Starlink is currently being touted as THE comms solution for emergencies
>> as large swathes of NZ's northern and eastern North Island remain without
>> terrestrial or mobile Internet coverage after cyclone Gabrielle. This is
>> the outage map of one of the larger mobile phone providers just for these
>> areas:
>>
>> Most of these are due to power outages to sites, but there are quite a
>> few backhaul cable issues as well.
>>
>> One of the biggest problems is that electronic payment systems don't work
>> without Internet. In our largely cashless society, this is leading to
>> situations where emergency services can't refuel their vehicles because
>> their fuel cards won't work, supermarkets and other stores can't sell
>> anything because customers have no means of paying, and the air force is
>> flying in hard cash in order to help the locals buy food.
>>
>> --
>> ****************************************************************
>> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>>
>> School of Computer Science
>>
>> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>>
>> The University of Aucklandu.speidel@auckland.ac.nz http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
>> ****************************************************************
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list
>> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>
>

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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Jonathan Bennett]

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I've run my 1st gen dishy on the road, and discovered that the inverter
needs to be a true sine-wave to get reasonable efficiency from the power
brick. With mine, the device just bootlooped on a modified sine wave
inverter, presumably because the brick couldn't quite push enough power to
complete boot.

Jonathan Bennett


On Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 5:14 PM Nathan Owens via Starlink <
starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> I should add, I can actually run the HP dish w/o the router using the same
> setup, but when it's obstructed it spikes to ~190W AC, which if it lasts
> more than 60s does trip my car E-Fuse. I'll be adding a small battery as a
> buffer, which should be able to pull 150W DC from my car, and handle the HP
> dish continuous draw of 65-95W.
>
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:12 PM Nathan Owens <nathan@nathan.io> wrote:
>
>> I ran a Round Dishy in my car for a long time, along with the router,
>> using a 300W inverter. My car is rated for 12A continuous, 16A peak. Per my
>> Kill-A-Watt, it drew on the order of 30-50W, sometimes spiking to 80-90W
>> when obstructed/booting. My inverter is 90% efficient, and never tripped my
>> car 12v E-fuse. The V3 dish is more efficient, and uses less power.
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:08 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
>> starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>>> In the aftermath of our cyclone here, I got dragged out for a bit of
>>> media comment and, downstream, a few questions came up on dishy power use.
>>> Here's what I know and can glean - comments welcome:
>>>
>>>    - Starlink's own specs say 50-75 W "Average Power Usage":
>>>    https://www.starlink.com/specifications. But that's average, not
>>>    peak, and peak is what matters when people start recommending that Starlink
>>>    could be run out of a small inverter and a car battery in a disaster.
>>>    - Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
>>>    cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses. That
>>>    puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W range
>>>    depending on battery voltage.
>>>    - Our lab's "RV" subscription rectangular dishy & router regularly
>>>    clocks in at around 80-100 W, and I've seen it go as high as 108 W on one
>>>    occasion. I've also seen it go as low as 30 W for the first time last night.
>>>    - I have a user report from an older round dishy owner having seen
>>>    up to 200 W on occasion.
>>>    - Assuming conservatively 90% inverter efficiency, that could mean
>>>    up to ~120W and maybe more for the rectangular version and over 220 W for
>>>    the circular one.
>>>    - If dishy goes over cigarette lighter fuse capacity, people may
>>>    lose their ability to charge phones from their car - also a critical
>>>    capability in a disaster.
>>>       - Not everyone takes kindly to the suggestion that advising
>>>       inverter + car battery use could potentially be counterproductive.
>>>       - So, what's the peak power use you have seen on your version of
>>>    dishy?
>>>    - It appears that the current mode of operation here is that dishy
>>>    uses several satellites in parallel if these can all see a gateway and have
>>>    capacity to carry traffic.
>>>    - So for us in urban Auckland with few Starlink users in the cell
>>>       and three gateways in the vicinity, our dishy is spoiled for choice and
>>>       usually gets to use maybe three or more satellites at once. That takes a
>>>       corresponding amount of power but also means great data rates a lot of the
>>>       time.
>>>       - For a rural user with more Starlink users in the cell and
>>>       further away from gateways, the satellites that the cell can see and that
>>>       can also see a gateway may be fewer in number. This means dishy only gets
>>>       to talk to maybe one or two birds at a time and so uses a lot less power,
>>>       and you get more average data rates there.
>>>    - If this is so, then it begs a question:
>>>       - If Starlink could cap the number of satellites dishy can use in
>>>       an emergency area, they would be able to keep your fuse intact. Should they
>>>       aim for that, even if it means that you might see lower data rates in a
>>>       situation when many people depend on one unit?
>>>
>>> Starlink is currently being touted as THE comms solution for emergencies
>>> as large swathes of NZ's northern and eastern North Island remain without
>>> terrestrial or mobile Internet coverage after cyclone Gabrielle. This is
>>> the outage map of one of the larger mobile phone providers just for these
>>> areas:
>>>
>>> Most of these are due to power outages to sites, but there are quite a
>>> few backhaul cable issues as well.
>>>
>>> One of the biggest problems is that electronic payment systems don't
>>> work without Internet. In our largely cashless society, this is leading to
>>> situations where emergency services can't refuel their vehicles because
>>> their fuel cards won't work, supermarkets and other stores can't sell
>>> anything because customers have no means of paying, and the air force is
>>> flying in hard cash in order to help the locals buy food.
>>>
>>> --
>>> ****************************************************************
>>> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>>>
>>> School of Computer Science
>>>
>>> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>>>
>>> The University of Aucklandu.speidel@auckland.ac.nz http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
>>> ****************************************************************
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Starlink mailing list
>>> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>

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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[David Lang]

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I've also seen people shorten the dishy cord and replace the inverter and 
internal power supply with a 12v -> 48v converted and had the dish power draw 
drop significantly. (search youtube for starlink on 12v, I'll try to find the 
link and send it to you later)

they have a snow melting function that draws a lot of power, the app lets you 
completely disable that.

David Lang


  On Fri, 17 Feb 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:

> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2023 12:08:02 +1300
> From: Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Reply-To: Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz>
> To: "starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking
> 
> In the aftermath of our cyclone here, I got dragged out for a bit of media 
> comment and, downstream, a few questions came up on dishy power use. Here's 
> what I know and can glean - comments welcome:
>
> * Starlink's own specs say 50-75 W "Average Power Usage":
>   https://www.starlink.com/specifications. But that's average, not
>   peak, and peak is what matters when people start recommending that
>   Starlink could be run out of a small inverter and a car battery in a
>   disaster.
> * Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
>   cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses.
>   That puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W
>   range depending on battery voltage.
> * Our lab's "RV" subscription rectangular dishy & router regularly
>   clocks in at around 80-100 W, and I've seen it go as high as 108 W
>   on one occasion. I've also seen it go as low as 30 W for the first
>   time last night.
> * I have a user report from an older round dishy owner having seen up
>   to 200 W on occasion.
> * Assuming conservatively 90% inverter efficiency, that could mean up
>   to ~120W and maybe more for the rectangular version and over 220 W
>   for the circular one.
> * If dishy goes over cigarette lighter fuse capacity, people may lose
>   their ability to charge phones from their car - also a critical
>   capability in a disaster.
>     o Not everyone takes kindly to the suggestion that advising
>       inverter + car battery use could potentially be counterproductive.
> * So, what's the peak power use you have seen on your version of dishy?
> * It appears that the current mode of operation here is that dishy
>   uses several satellites in parallel if these can all see a gateway
>   and have capacity to carry traffic.
>     o So for us in urban Auckland with few Starlink users in the cell
>       and three gateways in the vicinity, our dishy is spoiled for
>       choice and usually gets to use maybe three or more satellites at
>       once. That takes a corresponding amount of power but also means
>       great data rates a lot of the time.
>     o For a rural user with more Starlink users in the cell and
>       further away from gateways, the satellites that the cell can see
>       and that  can also see a gateway may be fewer in number. This
>       means dishy only gets to talk to maybe one or two birds at a
>       time and so uses a lot less power, and you get more average data
>       rates there.
> * If this is so, then it begs a question:
>     o If Starlink could cap the number of satellites dishy can use in
>       an emergency area, they would be able to keep your fuse intact.
>       Should they aim for that, even if it means that you might see
>       lower data rates in a situation when many people depend on one unit?
>
> Starlink is currently being touted as THE comms solution for emergencies as 
> large swathes of NZ's northern and eastern North Island remain without 
> terrestrial or mobile Internet coverage after cyclone Gabrielle. This is the 
> outage map of one of the larger mobile phone providers just for these areas:
>
> Most of these are due to power outages to sites, but there are quite a few 
> backhaul cable issues as well.
>
> One of the biggest problems is that electronic payment systems don't work 
> without Internet. In our largely cashless society, this is leading to 
> situations where emergency services can't refuel their vehicles because their 
> fuel cards won't work, supermarkets and other stores can't sell anything 
> because customers have no means of paying, and the air force is flying in 
> hard cash in order to help the locals buy food.
>
>

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_______________________________________________
Starlink mailing list
Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink

Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[David Lang]

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not the one I was looking for, but has some of the data (replacing the router)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrGCL9pNDDc

Here is the one I was looking for (modifies the router)

David Lang

On Thu, 16 Feb 2023, David Lang via Starlink wrote:

> Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2023 15:23:33 -0800 (PST)
> From: David Lang via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Reply-To: David Lang <david@lang.hm>
> To: Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz>
> Cc: "starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking
> 
> I've also seen people shorten the dishy cord and replace the inverter and 
> internal power supply with a 12v -> 48v converted and had the dish power draw 
> drop significantly. (search youtube for starlink on 12v, I'll try to find the 
> link and send it to you later)
>
> they have a snow melting function that draws a lot of power, the app lets you 
> completely disable that.
>
> David Lang
>
>
> On Fri, 17 Feb 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:
>
>> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2023 12:08:02 +1300
>> From: Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
>> Reply-To: Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz>
>> To: "starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
>> Subject: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking
>> 
>> In the aftermath of our cyclone here, I got dragged out for a bit of media 
>> comment and, downstream, a few questions came up on dishy power use. Here's 
>> what I know and can glean - comments welcome:
>> 
>> * Starlink's own specs say 50-75 W "Average Power Usage":
>>   https://www.starlink.com/specifications. But that's average, not
>>   peak, and peak is what matters when people start recommending that
>>   Starlink could be run out of a small inverter and a car battery in a
>>   disaster.
>> * Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
>>   cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses.
>>   That puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W
>>   range depending on battery voltage.
>> * Our lab's "RV" subscription rectangular dishy & router regularly
>>   clocks in at around 80-100 W, and I've seen it go as high as 108 W
>>   on one occasion. I've also seen it go as low as 30 W for the first
>>   time last night.
>> * I have a user report from an older round dishy owner having seen up
>>   to 200 W on occasion.
>> * Assuming conservatively 90% inverter efficiency, that could mean up
>>   to ~120W and maybe more for the rectangular version and over 220 W
>>   for the circular one.
>> * If dishy goes over cigarette lighter fuse capacity, people may lose
>>   their ability to charge phones from their car - also a critical
>>   capability in a disaster.
>>     o Not everyone takes kindly to the suggestion that advising
>>       inverter + car battery use could potentially be counterproductive.
>> * So, what's the peak power use you have seen on your version of dishy?
>> * It appears that the current mode of operation here is that dishy
>>   uses several satellites in parallel if these can all see a gateway
>>   and have capacity to carry traffic.
>>     o So for us in urban Auckland with few Starlink users in the cell
>>       and three gateways in the vicinity, our dishy is spoiled for
>>       choice and usually gets to use maybe three or more satellites at
>>       once. That takes a corresponding amount of power but also means
>>       great data rates a lot of the time.
>>     o For a rural user with more Starlink users in the cell and
>>       further away from gateways, the satellites that the cell can see
>>       and that  can also see a gateway may be fewer in number. This
>>       means dishy only gets to talk to maybe one or two birds at a
>>       time and so uses a lot less power, and you get more average data
>>       rates there.
>> * If this is so, then it begs a question:
>>     o If Starlink could cap the number of satellites dishy can use in
>>       an emergency area, they would be able to keep your fuse intact.
>>       Should they aim for that, even if it means that you might see
>>       lower data rates in a situation when many people depend on one unit?
>> 
>> Starlink is currently being touted as THE comms solution for emergencies as 
>> large swathes of NZ's northern and eastern North Island remain without 
>> terrestrial or mobile Internet coverage after cyclone Gabrielle. This is 
>> the outage map of one of the larger mobile phone providers just for these 
>> areas:
>> 
>> Most of these are due to power outages to sites, but there are quite a few 
>> backhaul cable issues as well.
>> 
>> One of the biggest problems is that electronic payment systems don't work 
>> without Internet. In our largely cashless society, this is leading to 
>> situations where emergency services can't refuel their vehicles because 
>> their fuel cards won't work, supermarkets and other stores can't sell 
>> anything because customers have no means of paying, and the air force is 
>> flying in hard cash in order to help the locals buy food.
>> 
>

Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Bruce Perens]

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On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:08 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

>
>    - Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
>    cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses. That
>    puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W range
>    depending on battery voltage.
>
> When a larger inverter failed upon installation, I ran Starlink with the
router and rectangular dish for about 2 months, unattended, on a Harbor
Freight 250W inverter and 8 GC2 batteries.

Unfortunately this sort of crashed and burned after the first snow. The
battery bank was 8 GC2 in series, and there was a 48V-12V converter before
the Harbor Freight inverter. I had 4 solar panels flat on top of a freight
container, simply so that they would not be visiblle and the site would be
low profile. These got covered by snow, and I will tilt them up before the
next snow season. The batteries then got to a low voltage, and the lovely
Victron battery protector failed because I wired it backwards. Then I had a
heart attack and could not visit the site for 3 months. The battery bank
discharged entirely. I finally arrived to find ice at the top of 4 cells in
the battery bank. Fortunately it was only at the top, and I was able to
recover all of the batteries, rewire the protector, and put the site back
on the air.

At that point, I switched to DishyPowa, connected via a hacked Starlink
Ethernet Adapter. This allows you to delete the inverter and the Starlink
router, and run the dish directly off of 48-52V DC. You still need a
router, because Starliink only provides one IPV4 DHCP address to the Dishy,
and you need to do the usual NAT thing on your local net. But routers that
run on 12V directly are easy to find.

    Thanks

    Bruce

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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Ulrich Speidel]

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Thanks all - really helpful and interesting information.

Also... could you please comment on:

  * How far your observations were from the closest gateway(s)
  * Whether you consider your cell Starlink virgin territory or close to
    subscriber saturation (https://www.starlink.com/map might help
    determine that - if it's light blue, it's likely the former, if it's
    "waitlist" blue but surrounded by light blue areas, or rural and
    close to a "waitlist blue" area, it's likely to be the latter.

On 17/02/2023 2:24 pm, Bruce Perens wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:08 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink 
> <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>       * Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables,
>         and cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10
>         A fuses. That puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to
>         130-something W range depending on battery voltage.
>
> When a larger inverter failed upon installation, I ran Starlink with 
> the router and rectangular dish for about 2 months, unattended, on a 
> Harbor Freight 250W inverter and 8 GC2 batteries.
>
> Unfortunately this sort of crashed and burned after the first snow. 
> The battery bank was 8 GC2 in series, and there was a 48V-12V 
> converter before the Harbor Freight inverter. I had 4 solar panels 
> flat on top of a freight container, simply so that they would not be 
> visiblle and the site would be low profile. These got covered by snow, 
> and I will tilt them up before the next snow season. The batteries 
> then got to a low voltage, and the lovely Victron battery protector 
> failed because I wired it backwards. Then I had a heart attack and 
> could not visit the site for 3 months. The battery bank discharged 
> entirely. I finally arrived to find ice at the top of 4 cells in the 
> battery bank. Fortunately it was only at the top, and I was able to 
> recover all of the batteries, rewire the protector, and put the site 
> back on the air.
>
> At that point, I switched to DishyPowa, connected via a hacked 
> Starlink Ethernet Adapter. This allows you to delete the inverter and 
> the Starlink router, and run the dish directly off of 48-52V DC. You 
> still need a router, because Starliink only provides one IPV4 DHCP 
> address to the Dishy, and you need to do the usual NAT thing on your 
> local net. But routers that run on 12V directly are easy to find.
>
>     Thanks
>
>     Bruce

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz  
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************



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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Nathan Owens]

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I’m near a bunch of gateways in Eastern Washington state, and also a closed
cell for new subscribers.

Not sure how much bearing the gateway has on the dish power use, especially
with ISLs now.

On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 9:27 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> Thanks all - really helpful and interesting information.
>
> Also... could you please comment on:
>
>    - How far your observations were from the closest gateway(s)
>    - Whether you consider your cell Starlink virgin territory or close to
>    subscriber saturation (https://www.starlink.com/map might help
>    determine that - if it's light blue, it's likely the former, if it's
>    "waitlist" blue but surrounded by light blue areas, or rural and close to a
>    "waitlist blue" area, it's likely to be the latter.
>
> On 17/02/2023 2:24 pm, Bruce Perens wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:08 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
> starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>    - Small inverters usually come with cigarette lighter cables, and
>>    cigarette lighter sockets are typically fused with 8 or 10 A fuses. That
>>    puts maximum safe power outputs in the 96W to 130-something W range
>>    depending on battery voltage.
>>
>> When a larger inverter failed upon installation, I ran Starlink with the
> router and rectangular dish for about 2 months, unattended, on a Harbor
> Freight 250W inverter and 8 GC2 batteries.
>
> Unfortunately this sort of crashed and burned after the first snow. The
> battery bank was 8 GC2 in series, and there was a 48V-12V converter before
> the Harbor Freight inverter. I had 4 solar panels flat on top of a freight
> container, simply so that they would not be visiblle and the site would be
> low profile. These got covered by snow, and I will tilt them up before the
> next snow season. The batteries then got to a low voltage, and the lovely
> Victron battery protector failed because I wired it backwards. Then I had a
> heart attack and could not visit the site for 3 months. The battery bank
> discharged entirely. I finally arrived to find ice at the top of 4 cells in
> the battery bank. Fortunately it was only at the top, and I was able to
> recover all of the batteries, rewire the protector, and put the site back
> on the air.
>
> At that point, I switched to DishyPowa, connected via a hacked Starlink
> Ethernet Adapter. This allows you to delete the inverter and the Starlink
> router, and run the dish directly off of 48-52V DC. You still need a
> router, because Starliink only provides one IPV4 DHCP address to the Dishy,
> and you need to do the usual NAT thing on your local net. But routers that
> run on 12V directly are easy to find.
>
>     Thanks
>
>     Bruce
>
> --
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Aucklandu.speidel@auckland.ac.nz http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>

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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Michael Richardson]

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Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
    > * Whether you consider your cell Starlink virgin territory or close to
    > subscriber saturation (https://www.starlink.com/map might help
    > determine that - if it's light blue, it's likely the former, if it's
    > "waitlist" blue but surrounded by light blue areas, or rural and

What's the expected corrolation?
Higher saturation => higher current?  Or the opposite?


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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Bruce Perens]

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My remote site is about 35 mi from the Earth station in Tionesta,
California. It's a waitlisted area. The entire area is low population
density: rural agricultural, forested, or barren, and I can only believe
that it's waitlisted because that Earth station and the next closest one in
Arbuckle, California; serve the San Francisco Bay area, which is a 5-hour
drive from my remote site.

On Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 07:43 Michael Richardson <mcr@sandelman.ca> wrote:

>
> Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>     > * Whether you consider your cell Starlink virgin territory or close
> to
>     > subscriber saturation (https://www.starlink.com/map might help
>     > determine that - if it's light blue, it's likely the former, if it's
>     > "waitlist" blue but surrounded by light blue areas, or rural and
>
> What's the expected corrolation?
> Higher saturation => higher current?  Or the opposite?
>
>

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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Ulrich Speidel]

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I'd expect higher saturation to be associated with the use of fewer 
satellites per user terminal, and therefore lower power use.

Similarly, I'd expect proximity to gateways to be associated with higher 
power use.

What leads me to this impression?

Essentially, inter-satellite linking isn't yet in widespread use for 
Starlink, so most users at this point still use a bent-pipe arrangement 
terminal<->satellite<->gateway<->Internet.

This requires the satellite to be in view of both terminal and gateway. 
There is, however, no reason why a user's packets could not travel via a 
diversity of satellites. The only requirement for this arrangement is 
that the satellites used must be in the intersection of the set of 
satellites that the terminal can see and the set of satellites that the 
gateway can see.

What makes me think that this is actually happening? I'm in a low 
saturation cell close to multiple gateways and partial obstruction of 
the southern sky (which dishy uses in the southern hemisphere). So 
whatever satellite my dishy sees, the gateways also see (more or less), 
but the number of satellites I see is constrained by the partial 
obstruction, so jumps up and down over short periods of time as the 
satellites move in and out of view for me.

When I look at achievable rates with the likes of speedtest.net then I 
see huge jumps over relatively short periods of time. 20-30 Mb/s down 
one moment, 160+ Mb/s in the next run. This is exactly what I'd expect 
if dishy moves from a set of satellites with plenty of competition from 
neighbouring rural regions (e.g., satellites south-east of Auckland) to 
a larger set predominantly over the Tasman Sea, where there are no 
users. I'm simplifying here.

So if you happen to be a nerd in a fibre-connected and -penetrated city 
surrounded by gateways, you should see higher power use as Starlink 
wants you to have the maximum rate possible and will let you access 
whichever birds are available during the current time period. If you're 
in the wap-waps with your nearest gateway 100's of kilometres away (or 
miles for youse Americans and Brits, we're talking ballpark here ;-)), 
then the number of satellites you see that can relay to gateways for you 
should be smaller on average. You would be facing stiff competition for 
their capacity from your neighbours down the road. That would give you 
less chance to transmit, and hence lower power use. Note: A mitigating 
factor here could also be that the beams you need to communicate with 
these relaying satellites from your dishy might be further off bore than 
in the former case, which would require a little extra power to make up 
for longer path and lower dishy aperture.

Hope that makes sense?

On 18/02/2023 4:43 am, Michael Richardson wrote:
>
> Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> > * Whether you consider your cell Starlink virgin territory or close to
> > subscriber saturation (https://www.starlink.com/map 
> <https://www.starlink.com/map> 
> might help
> > determine that - if it's light blue, it's likely the former, if it's
> > "waitlist" blue but surrounded by light blue areas, or rural and
>
> What's the expected corrolation?
> Higher saturation => higher current? Or the opposite?
>
-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz  
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************



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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[David Lang]

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On Sat, 18 Feb 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:

> This requires the satellite to be in view of both terminal and gateway. There 
> is, however, no reason why a user's packets could not travel via a diversity 
> of satellites.

In theory you are correct, but I don't think they are doing that yet. We had a 
discussion of the signaling protocol and someone posted that they had done 
research and found that there was only one satellite illuminating a cell at a 
time. IIRC this was when the paper came out on using starlink signals for 
positioning.

As they launch more satellites and get the in-space routing up and running, I 
expect that they will change that at some point.

it is an interesting question.

David Lang

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Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Ulrich Speidel]

On 18/02/2023 11:52 pm, David Lang wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Feb 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:
>
>> This requires the satellite to be in view of both terminal and 
>> gateway. There is, however, no reason why a user's packets could not 
>> travel via a diversity of satellites.
>
> In theory you are correct, but I don't think they are doing that yet. 
> We had a discussion of the signaling protocol and someone posted that 
> they had done research and found that there was only one satellite 
> illuminating a cell at a time. IIRC this was when the paper came out 
> on using starlink signals for positioning.

Given that the number of satellites has effectively doubled over the 
last year, does this still hold? For handover purposes, dishy must be 
tracking multiple satellites anyway, and exchanging successive packets 
with different satellites shouldn't be all that difficult then.

I've just run a series of 20 speedtest.net test and tried to spy the 
upload / download power usage half-way through each test. The result 
shows a significantly stronger correlation between power use and 
download final rate than between power use and upload final rate. Of 
course, it's a small sample, and I'll try to do a few more tomorrow.

Of course, if it receives from multiple birds at the same time, then 
that would keep its signal processor a little busier than if it only 
received from one. So maybe it's that. Or maybe we're looking at one 
bird with multiple channels/bursts, also imposing a higher compute load?

Also intriguing: In the past, we used to see typical power usage in the 
80-100 W range with the thing, maybe as low as 60 W if I caught it 
lucky. But now it's within the official specs of 40-75 W most of the 
time, and it's changed this week.

>
> As they launch more satellites and get the in-space routing up and 
> running, I expect that they will change that at some point.
>
> it is an interesting question.
>
> David Lang
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>
-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************

Re: [Starlink] Starlink power use & satellite tracking

[Bruce Perens]

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On Sat, Feb 18, 2023 at 4:36 AM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> But now it's within the official specs of 40-75 W most of the
> time, and it's changed this week.


This can be an operating system change implementing low-power sleep when
the system is idle. Often it doesn't happen during initial development.
Hopefully the dish OS is shared with the military and commercial users,
where this can be more important than it is for most residential use.

There's a trick I learned while developing embedded devices. Connect an
oscilloscope across a current shunt feeding the device. You will generally
see the CPU scheduling clock tick at 100 Hz or so, and other periodic power
drains.

    Thanks

    Bruce

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