Starlink in the Pacific

[bialoveld]

I'm planning to circumnavigate the Pacific and haven't bought any starlink hardware yet. If they're not geofencing, I'm thinking there's a good chance of it working better than a satphone.


Has anyone tried an RV sub in the Pacific?


I figure if I get coverage half the time, that would still be an improvement over the other options. But if it shuts down 10nm off the coast because I haven't paid for the $10k cruise ship package, Iridium it is.


Any thoughts?

[SV Tom Crean]

Originally Posted by bialoveld

I'm planning to circumnavigate the Pacific and haven't bought any starlink hardware yet. If they're not geofencing, I'm thinking there's a good chance of it working better than a satphone.


Has anyone tried an RV sub in the Pacific?


I figure if I get coverage half the time, that would still be an improvement over the other options. But if it shuts down 10nm off the coast because I haven't paid for the $10k cruise ship package, Iridium it is.


Any thoughts?

So right now Starlink requires ground stations each of which has a range of about 700km. If you are outside that range you will see the sat but the sat can’t see the ground station. Later this year they are enabling links between the sats which means a ground station will not be required (where sat to sat links are available). Don’t know how long the rollout will take.

Suva has a ground station but that’s all between there and Panama/South America).

RV is geofenced but this is not enforced much, but that can change. You can use RV anywhere in the same continent and can change your address (and therefore continent) so that might work.

We will know more at the end of the year.