[Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[Noel Butler]

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When the heck are starlink going to release a true "RV unit" that is 
12v?

Sure we can hack it to do what starlink should have been doing all 
along, but that's ugly, it voids our warranties, and is only of use to 
those who have some understanding electronics.

Surely they can design a 12v RV modem that has the boost converters 
internally so its plug and play in campers or cars/vans, rather than 
saying "this is RV - but you need inefficient mains inverters to use 
it",  they charge a premium for sub standard service (low priority 
data), surely they can add an extra, well at my singular buy price $15 
in components, to them in mass production it would be more like $5.

-- 
Regards,
Noel Butler

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Re: [Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[Alexandre Petrescu]

What is an RV unit?

In the offer from starlink in this country, saying 'Mobile', there are a 
couple of boxes to be put in a car, and a 'flat' antenna.  I suspect 
that flat antenna for in-car is not motorized, even though they could 
micro-motorize some micro parts of it (like motorizing the small 
hexagons of a large-diameter mirror of a telescope).

One of the in-car boxes is called a WiFi router; it claims to connect to 
at most 12 other such WiFi routers with a 'mesh'.  I suspect it is 
either for other starlink WiFi routers around the car, or for car-to-car 
platoon communications, in case only the platoon's head has the 'flat' 
antenna to talk to satellite.  Such a use case can be interesting.

So, I think theses starlink devices with flat antenna made to be put in 
a car, are with 12Volt adapters.

My question would be whether a platoon-to-platoon communication via a 
starlink train (ISL sat-to-sat) without going through a GS (ground 
station teleport) is possible today.  Probably yes.

Alex

Le 25/09/2023 à 08:05, Noel Butler via Starlink a écrit :
>
> When the heck are starlink going to release a true "RV unit" that is 12v?
>
> Sure we can hack it to do what starlink should have been doing all 
> along, but that's ugly, it voids our warranties, and is only of use to 
> those who have some understanding electronics.
>
> Surely they can design a 12v RV modem that has the boost converters 
> internally so its plug and play in campers or cars/vans, rather than 
> saying "this is RV - but you need inefficient mains inverters to use 
> it",  they charge a premium for sub standard service (low priority 
> data), surely they can add an extra, well at my singular buy price $15 
> in components, to them in mass production it would be more like $5.
>
> -- 
>
> Regards,
> Noel Butler
>
> This Email, including attachments, may contain legally privileged 
> information, therefore at all times remains confidential and subject 
> to copyright protected under international law. You may not 
> disseminate this message without the authors express written authority 
> to do so.   If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the 
> sender then delete all copies of this message including attachments 
> immediately. Confidentiality, copyright, and legal privilege are not 
> waived or lost by reason of the mistaken delivery of this message.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink

Re: [Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[Alexandre Petrescu]

ah, sorry, probably we speak of the same thing.

I dont know whether or not the current in-car starlink devices require 
an extra 12v-to-220V/110V adapter, or whether it's included, or integrated.

These 12V-220V/110V adapters are relatively big, necessitate fans.  If 
they are still needed for starlink in-car devices is probably because of 
higher transmit power that is necessary to reach to 360km altitude. They 
could reduce that in-car power need by bringing the sats even lower, or 
other non-sat objects like HAPs.  Or by augmenting the starlink sat 
antennas sizes.

Alex

Le 25/09/2023 à 08:05, Noel Butler via Starlink a écrit :
>
> When the heck are starlink going to release a true "RV unit" that is 12v?
>
> Sure we can hack it to do what starlink should have been doing all 
> along, but that's ugly, it voids our warranties, and is only of use to 
> those who have some understanding electronics.
>
> Surely they can design a 12v RV modem that has the boost converters 
> internally so its plug and play in campers or cars/vans, rather than 
> saying "this is RV - but you need inefficient mains inverters to use 
> it",  they charge a premium for sub standard service (low priority 
> data), surely they can add an extra, well at my singular buy price $15 
> in components, to them in mass production it would be more like $5.
>
> -- 
>
> Regards,
> Noel Butler
>
> This Email, including attachments, may contain legally privileged 
> information, therefore at all times remains confidential and subject 
> to copyright protected under international law. You may not 
> disseminate this message without the authors express written authority 
> to do so.   If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the 
> sender then delete all copies of this message including attachments 
> immediately. Confidentiality, copyright, and legal privilege are not 
> waived or lost by reason of the mistaken delivery of this message.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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Re: [Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[Noel Butler]

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On 25/09/2023 18:06, Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink wrote:

> ah, sorry, probably we speak of the same thing.
> 
> I dont know whether or not the current in-car starlink devices require 
> an extra 12v-to-220V/110V adapter, or whether it's included, or 
> integrated.

Here, the  "RV" is identical to a household service, the same stuff, 
except your allowed to move around - not locked to the beam covering 
your home location.

> These 12V-220V/110V adapters are relatively big, necessitate fans.

If you're getting the "RV/camping/portable" equipment you'd want to use 
your 12volt system that nearly all campers and RV's I've seen with 
factory electrics come with (A couple RV models are 24v) so the DC 
supply woud need to accept 12 to 48 input, slightly less heat is 
generated if you use 24v and even less again if 48v since it only bucks 
it for the 12v parts of the circuitry in modem. You would not want to 
use an AC supply, defeats the purpose of the design of that service, the 
12 to 48v boost converters for the dish to work have decent heat sinks, 
a little better ventilation in the modems for that little bit of extra 
heat would be beneficial.

> If they are still needed for starlink in-car devices is probably 
> because of higher transmit power that is necessary to reach to 360km 
> altitude. They could reduce that in-car power need by bringing the sats 
> even lower, or other non-sat objects like HAPs.  Or by augmenting the 
> starlink sat antennas sizes.

They are identical hardware, no extra power is needed, since there is 
350  odd km's to the satellite, do you really think the 2 or so metres 
AGL for campers, would really need more power compared to the standard 
unit at 10 metres AGL, at say a house mounted dish :)  In early days I 
remember  quite a few youtubers using the stand on the ground in their 
back yard, and they probably still do.

-- 
Regards,
Noel Butler

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Re: [Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[Ulrich Speidel]

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On 25/09/2023 11:32 pm, Noel Butler via Starlink wrote:
>
> On 25/09/2023 18:06, Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink wrote:
>
>> ah, sorry, probably we speak of the same thing.
>>
>> I dont know whether or not the current in-car starlink devices 
>> require an extra 12v-to-220V/110V adapter, or whether it's included, 
>> or integrated.
> Here, the  "RV" is identical to a household service, the same stuff, 
> except your allowed to move around - not locked to the beam covering 
> your home location.

Depending on where on the globe you live, there is a difference in the 
range of Dishy options available (or at least advertised), which is 
where perhaps some of the confusion arises.

The "RV" option available in Australia and NZ at this time is indeed the 
residential option without the cell lock. It's intended for stationary 
use and assumes that you have a mains (AC) power source. We've tried it 
here with the much taunted Yaosheng adapter, which however isn't 12V (it 
needs 42V) and which gave us a lot more outages than the Starlink router 
with Ethernet adapter.

There is also a "mobility" option available here (or at least they offer 
sales consultations for it) that's shown mounted flat on the roof of a 
speeding 4WD and seems to be quite different from a residential class 
Dishy. Presumably that will run off 12V. Cost is significantly more than 
for the RV option, and there's an "up to" caveat on the data rate, which 
I take to mean "I you decide to hoon around with a Dishy that doesn't 
really have the opportunity to track properly with its phased array, 
then expect to have to track multiple sats in parallel to stay 
connected, and expect to pay for the privilege of occupying a larger 
number of slots, many of which you won't get to use properly".

>>
>> These 12V-220V/110V adapters are relatively big, necessitate fans.
> If you're getting the "RV/camping/portable" equipment you'd want to 
> use your 12volt system that nearly all campers and RV's I've seen with 
> factory electrics come with (A couple RV models are 24v) so the DC 
> supply woud need to accept 12 to 48 input, slightly less heat is 
> generated if you use 24v and even less again if 48v since it only 
> bucks it for the 12v parts of the circuitry in modem. You would not 
> want to use an AC supply, defeats the purpose of the design of that 
> service, the 12 to 48v boost converters for the dish to work have 
> decent heat sinks, a little better ventilation in the modems for that 
> little bit of extra heat would be beneficial.
>> If they are still needed for starlink in-car devices is probably 
>> because of higher transmit power that is necessary to reach to 360km 
>> altitude. They could reduce that in-car power need by bringing the 
>> sats even lower, or other non-sat objects like HAPs.  Or by 
>> augmenting the starlink sat antennas sizes.
> They are identical hardware, no extra power is needed, since there is 
> 350  odd km's to the satellite, do you really think the 2 or so metres 
> AGL for campers, would really need more power compared to the standard 
> unit at 10 metres AGL, at say a house mounted dish :)  In early days I 
> remember  quite a few youtubers using the stand on the ground in their 
> back yard, and they probably still do.

Distance to the satellite is usually much more than 350 odd km. The vast 
majority of Starlink sats orbit at around 550 km, and your Dishy does 
not normally talk to satellites straight overhead (except in a few 
select latitudes, such as close to the 53rd parallels, where it may do 
so if there is one right overhead at the time). In moderate latitudes, 
where much of humanity lives, Dishy will point itself in the direction 
of the nearest 53rd parallel and track satellites it can see in roughly 
that direction, meaning that most satellites Dishy talks to are more 
like 800 - 1000 km away. Near the Equator, Dishy will remain in "coffee 
table" position but avoid the geostationary arc, which also means that 
the sats it talks to are quite a bit off to the side all of the time.

We've observed that our Dishy consumes more power during large downloads 
than during uploads, which suggests that transmit power isn't the main 
factor here. It appears that it's the signal processing that is needed 
to receive and demodulate the incoming signal with the high bit rate 
data stream that really eats the watts.

Incidentally, with more birds in the sky, Dishy seems to be willing to 
put up with a bit more obstruction nowadays:

Think of this image as viewing our Dishy down its surface normal, 
mirroring the sky. Anything in red is obstruction, anything in white (if 
your background is white, save image and view against a dark background) 
are successful communications with satellites. The obstruction you see 
here is the corner of my roof at home, making up around a quarter of 
Dishy's field of view. The obstruction resulted in a ping loss of 518 
packets out of 635923, or 0.08%.

-- 

****************************************************************
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] Speaking of retirements...

[David Lang]

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On Tue, 26 Sep 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:

> Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:45:27 +1300
> From: Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Reply-To: Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz>
> To: starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Speaking of retirements...
> 
> On 25/09/2023 11:32 pm, Noel Butler via Starlink wrote:
>> 
>> On 25/09/2023 18:06, Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink wrote:
>> 
>>> ah, sorry, probably we speak of the same thing.
>>> 
>>> I dont know whether or not the current in-car starlink devices require an 
>>> extra 12v-to-220V/110V adapter, or whether it's included, or integrated.
>> Here, the  "RV" is identical to a household service, the same stuff, except 
>> your allowed to move around - not locked to the beam covering your home 
>> location.
>
> Depending on where on the globe you live, there is a difference in the range 
> of Dishy options available (or at least advertised), which is where perhaps 
> some of the confusion arises.
>
> The "RV" option available in Australia and NZ at this time is indeed the 
> residential option without the cell lock. It's intended for stationary use 
> and assumes that you have a mains (AC) power source. We've tried it here with 
> the much taunted Yaosheng adapter, which however isn't 12V (it needs 42V) and 
> which gave us a lot more outages than the Starlink router with Ethernet 
> adapter.

12v DC to 48v DC for PoE should be significantly more efficient that a round 
trip through 110/60Hz or 220/50Hz

any chance that you were short on current capacity for 48v?

When you were seeing outages, was the dish dropping the link to you, or the link 
to the satellite?

David Lang

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Re: [Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[Noel Butler]

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On 25/09/2023 21:45, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:

>> 
> 
> The "RV" option available in Australia and NZ at this time is indeed 
> the residential option without the cell lock. It's intended for 
> stationary use and assumes that you have a mains (AC) power source. 
> We've tried it here with the much taunted Yaosheng adapter, which 
> however isn't 12V (it needs 42V) and which gave us a lot more outages 
> than the Starlink router with Ethernet adapter.
> 
> There is also a "mobility" option available here (or at least they 
> offer sales consultations for it) that's shown mounted flat on the roof 
> of a speeding 4WD and seems to be quite different from a residential 
> class Dishy. Presumably that will run off 12V. Cost is significantly 
> more than

At least two articles I've read tonight confirm they are still AC 
powered

The significant cost is for the mobility "pro" version, one article 
indicated 599 for the standard (I assume that's USD but can't confirm)

So looks like we *still* have to void warranties and hack it for 12v.

> meaning that most satellites Dishy talks to are more like 800 - 1000 km 
> away. Near the Equator, Dishy will remain in "coffee table" position 
> but avoid the geostationary arc, which also means that the sats it 
> talks to are quite a bit off to the side all of the time.

Still a lot closer than 22km's up in the troposphere where Aus's NBN 
sats are, hrmm, actually 22k's might even be the stratosphere, I'm sure 
someone will correct me :)

> We've observed that our Dishy consumes more power during large 
> downloads than during uploads, which suggests that transmit power isn't

Something to be mindful of then if that's the cases with all units, my 
use cases are jitsi, VoIP, Weather, twatter, and odd youtube, I dont 
have netflix or such, and for FTA TV, there's VAST and foxtel uses the 
same satellite as VAST so ...yeah, there's that ;)

> the main factor here. It appears that it's the signal processing that 
> is needed to receive and demodulate the incoming signal with the high 
> bit rate data stream that really eats the watts.

That doesn't sound well designed if thats the case, I mean we're only 
talking a few hundred mbps on a consumer unit if you're lucky.

> Incidentally, with more birds in the sky, Dishy seems to be willing to 
> put up with a bit more obstruction nowadays:

If you have this level of obstruction at a permanent location, why not 
put it up high in clear(er) view of the sky :)

-- 
Regards,
Noel Butler

This Email, including attachments, may contain legally privileged 
information, therefore at all times remains confidential and subject to 
copyright protected under international law. You may not disseminate 
this message without the authors express written authority to do so.   
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Re: [Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[Ulrich Speidel]

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On 26/09/2023 11:46 pm, Noel Butler via Starlink wrote:
>
> On 25/09/2023 21:45, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:
>
>> The "RV" option available in Australia and NZ at this time is indeed 
>> the residential option without the cell lock. It's intended for 
>> stationary use and assumes that you have a mains (AC) power source. 
>> We've tried it here with the much taunted Yaosheng adapter, which 
>> however isn't 12V (it needs 42V) and which gave us a lot more outages 
>> than the Starlink router with Ethernet adapter.
>>
>> There is also a "mobility" option available here (or at least they 
>> offer sales consultations for it) that's shown mounted flat on the 
>> roof of a speeding 4WD and seems to be quite different from a 
>> residential class Dishy. Presumably that will run off 12V. Cost is 
>> significantly more than
>>
> At least two articles I've read tonight confirm they are still AC powered
>
The RV option is AC powered, yes.
>
> The significant cost is for the mobility "pro" version, one article 
> indicated 599 for the standard (I assume that's USD but can't confirm)
>
I think, as on this mailing list, that a lot of people confuse the RV 
(mobile in the sense that you can take it to other places) and the truly 
mobile version (usable *while* you move), so the "standard" is probably 
the standard residential unit on an RV subscription.
>
> So looks like we *still* have to void warranties and hack it for 12v.
>
We use it with a portable power station.
>>
>> meaning that most satellites Dishy talks to are more like 800 - 1000 
>> km away. Near the Equator, Dishy will remain in "coffee table" 
>> position but avoid the geostationary arc, which also means that the 
>> sats it talks to are quite a bit off to the side all of the time.
>>
> Still a lot closer than 22km's up in the troposphere where Aus's NBN 
> sats are, hrmm, actually 22k's might even be the stratosphere, I'm 
> sure someone will correct me :)
>
Yes, that needs correction. Aus's NBN sats are geostationary, that's 
35,756 km above the Equator, anything at 22 km would need to be a HAPS 
(under development in various places but not operational at this time) 
or face early demise because it's still very much in the atmosphere - 
some military jets fly as high as that, as did Concorde I think. Space 
starts at about 100 km.
>>
>> We've observed that our Dishy consumes more power during large 
>> downloads than during uploads, which suggests that transmit power isn't
>>
> Something to be mindful of then if that's the cases with all units, my 
> use cases are jitsi, VoIP, Weather, twatter, and odd youtube, I dont 
> have netflix or such, and for FTA TV, there's VAST and foxtel uses the 
> same satellite as VAST so ...yeah, there's that ;)
>
Which might just blow your cigarette lighter fuse - in some vehicles, 
these allow for as little as 8 amps (and most plugs get hot at that 
current, so there's an immediate voltage drop there).
>>
>> the main factor here. It appears that it's the signal processing that 
>> is needed to receive and demodulate the incoming signal with the high 
>> bit rate data stream that really eats the watts.
>>
> That doesn't sound well designed if thats the case, I mean we're only 
> talking a few hundred mbps on a consumer unit if you're lucky.
>
>> Incidentally, with more birds in the sky, Dishy seems to be willing 
>> to put up with a bit more obstruction nowadays:
>>
>>
> If you have this level of obstruction at a permanent location, why not 
> put it up high in clear(er) view of the sky :)

1) Because my wife put it there while I was at APNIC56 ;-) She had 
visitors and needed the use of the outdoor table on which it lived until 
then (which had a much clearer view of the sky but has since moved from 
that hibernation location to a summer position where it hasn't).

2) Can do, but by the looks of it I don't need to.

> -- 
>
> Regards,
> Noel Butler
>
> This Email, including attachments, may contain legally privileged 
> information, therefore at all times remains confidential and subject 
> to copyright protected under international law. You may not 
> disseminate this message without the authors express written authority 
> to do so.   If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the 
> sender then delete all copies of this message including attachments 
> immediately. Confidentiality, copyright, and legal privilege are not 
> waived or lost by reason of the mistaken delivery of this message.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
-- 
****************************************************************
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] Speaking of retirements...

[Noel Butler]

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>> At least two articles I've read tonight confirm they are still AC 
>> powered
> The RV option is AC powered, yes.
> 
>> The significant cost is for the mobility "pro" version, one article 
>> indicated 599 for the standard (I assume that's USD but can't confirm)
> I think, as on this mailing list, that a lot of people confuse the RV 
> (mobile in the sense that you can take it to other places) and the 
> truly mobile version (usable *while* you move), so the "standard" is 
> probably the standard residential unit on an RV subscription.

No confusion at all here, this is from starlink, the true mobile version 
unit is also AC, the changes are in dishy for obvious wind loading 
reasons.

-- 
Regards,
Noel Butler

This Email, including attachments, may contain legally privileged 
information, therefore at all times remains confidential and subject to 
copyright protected under international law. You may not disseminate 
this message without the authors express written authority to do so.   
If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender then 
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Re: [Starlink] Speaking of retirements...

[David Lang]

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you can buy a box that will power your dish from 12v and give you ethernet out 
to run to your own router, no cable cutting or warranty voiding required.

We also just got word of a couple new variations in the last week or so.

David Lang

On Mon, 25 Sep 2023, Noel Butler via Starlink wrote:

> When the heck are starlink going to release a true "RV unit" that is 12v?
>
> Sure we can hack it to do what starlink should have been doing all along, but 
> that's ugly, it voids our warranties, and is only of use to those who have 
> some understanding electronics.
>
> Surely they can design a 12v RV modem that has the boost converters 
> internally so its plug and play in campers or cars/vans, rather than saying 
> "this is RV - but you need inefficient mains inverters to use it",  they 
> charge a premium for sub standard service (low priority data), surely they 
> can add an extra, well at my singular buy price $15 in components, to them in 
> mass production it would be more like $5.
>
>

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