Starlink hexagon layer

[jamesfrankham]

There will be a lot of OpenCPN users on Starlink now, and all share a problem—knowing whether they’re on Starlink ‘land’ (sometimes it’s land, sometimes it's ocean) or Starlink ‘ocean’ (sometimes it’s ocean, sometimes it’s land). Billing and terms of service are very different for each, and getting it wrong means you get emails from Starlink threatening to disconnect you.

It occurred to me that the Starlink hexagons would make a great layer for OpenCPN so users know which is which. I’ve seen third-party websites with the hexagons, so maybe it’s a public file already.

Here's the offical map; https://www.starlink.com/map
And a third-party one; https://satellitemap.space/

Ideas?

[poiu]

Originally Posted by jamesfrankham

There will be a lot of OpenCPN users on Starlink now, and all share a problem—knowing whether they’re on Starlink ‘land’ (sometimes it’s land, sometimes it's ocean) or Starlink ‘ocean’ (sometimes it’s ocean, sometimes it’s land). Billing and terms of service are very different for each, and getting it wrong means you get emails from Starlink threatening to disconnect you.

It occurred to me that the Starlink hexagons would make a great layer for OpenCPN so users know which is which. I’ve seen third-party websites with the hexagons, so maybe it’s a public file already.

Here's the offical map; https://www.starlink.com/map
And a third-party one; https://satellitemap.space/

Ideas?

I don't think it relates to the satellite, rather your location. Just turn it off whilst at sea, or pay the extra.


What an amazing array. Ominous though, when I think of the film Gravity.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by jamesfrankham

There will be a lot of OpenCPN users on Starlink now, and all share a problem—knowing whether they’re on Starlink ‘land’ (sometimes it’s land, sometimes it's ocean) or Starlink ‘ocean’ (sometimes it’s ocean, sometimes it’s land). Billing and terms of service are very different for each, and getting it wrong means you get emails from Starlink threatening to disconnect you.

It occurred to me that the Starlink hexagons would make a great layer for OpenCPN so users know which is which. I’ve seen third-party websites with the hexagons, so maybe it’s a public file already.

Here's the offical map; https://www.starlink.com/map
And a third-party one; https://satellitemap.space/

Ideas?

On overlay would be useful but
1) you are going to get emails regardless. They are threatening sales emails. People have gotten for vessels on the hard. RVers have gotten them.

2) Creating the grid would be relatively easy (it isn't SpaceX specific) but there is no way to get which cells are "land" vs "ocean" in any machine managable method as SpaceX provides no api for getting that data.

[Statistical]

For any developer interested the "Starlink Hexagon Grid" is actually an open source system created by Uber called H3.

https://h3geo.org/

[BG305]

I think this will be sorted out in short order. SpaceX isn’t a govt bureaucracy with endless amounts of red tape. Elon launched another rocket yesterday with 56 more SL satellites. I also heard from a friend that T-Mobile is already testing the Cell to satellite service as the FCC has given them the licensing necessary to move forward. Elon has done in the last 2yrs what no satellite provider has done in the last 20yrs.

[Statistical]

More details on SL using Uber's H3 grid system.


(H3 grid size 5 cells on left , Starlink availability map on right)

https://github.com/uber/h3/issues/717

Starlink does now use H3, size 5, replacing their proprietary hexagonal cell system, which I wasn't able to reverse-engineer. My assumption is they need increasing granularity, as the cells are actually used for satellite resource scheduling, not only as a UI for customers to see coverage.

Even having an H3 overlay in OpenCPN as a first step without land vs ocean designation would be useful.

[wholybee]

Starlink allows access to your account to make changes even when otherwise turned off on the ocean. Just use it until it quits, then turn on priority.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by wholybee

Starlink allows access to your account to make changes even when otherwise turned off on the ocean. Just use it until it quits, then turn on priority.

While the OP fears are overblown I still think something like this would be useful for planning purposes.

[jamesfrankham]

Originally Posted by Statistical

While the OP fears are overblown I still think something like this would be useful for planning purposes.

I don't think it's overblown—Starlink are already selectively switching off service to those not on Mobile Priority data. So understanding when you need it on and when you don't is fairly relevant.

Right now I'm moving from one side of a lagoon to the other side of a lagoon on the same island in Tonga—one side I have access as per my account, on the other side (still with land and villages) it's Starlink 'ocean' and I need Mobile Priority on. Not to hard in this case as I have the land as a location reference, but at other sites it's very hard to know where we are located with reference to H3 hexagons.

Even without available/unavailable tags, the hexagon layer would be extremely helpful to eyeball location.

Does anyone know how to get H3 onto an OpenCPN layer?

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by jamesfrankham

I don't think it's overblown—Starlink are already selectively switching off service to those not on Mobile Priority data. So understanding when you need it on and when you don't is fairly relevant.

Right now I'm moving from one side of a lagoon to the other side of a lagoon on the same island in Tonga—one side I have access as per my account, on the other side (still with land and villages) it's Starlink 'ocean' and I need Mobile Priority on. Not to hard in this case as I have the land as a location reference, but at other sites it's very hard to know where we are located with reference to H3 hexagons.

Even without available/unavailable tags, the hexagon layer would be extremely helpful to eyeball location.

Does anyone know how to get H3 onto an OpenCPN layer?

To be clear SpaceX hasn't cut anyone off. There are people right now in the Pacific using standard dish on non-priority plan without paying $2/GB and it still works.

Even if they did cut you off in a particular location it isn't like they would ban your dish for life. If it stops working enable the $2/GB to restore connectivity.

That being said I do agree this would be useful for planning purposes but there is no way to just "get it" in OpenCPN someone is going to have to develop a plugin to support this.

[nohal]

We of course do, generating H3 grid and exporting the result to any format or displaying directly in OpenCPN is trivial.
What we don't know is what cells are considered by Starlink to be eligible for what type of service.
For example the attached is the H3 size 5 grid (That is the cell size Starlink supposedly uses) overlaid over my location. What is it able to tell me?

[jamesfrankham]

Perhaps it depends on your context. For those of us cruising small islands in the south Pacific where the hexagons can define where we can work and homeschool with unlimited data, the difference is rather more stark.

See attached map of Vava'u. If you're at Nuapapu, Hunga or any of the southern islands you're constantly toggling Mobile Priority on and off.

Would it need to be a plugin, or just a layer?

Screen Shot 2023-05-18 at 6.14.08 PM.png Views: 101 Size: 104.5 KB ID: 275480" style="margin: 2px" />

[nohal]

In this very special case the solution has been at hand for a long time, simply use the attached GPX file either as a layer or simply import it.

[jamesfrankham]

Originally Posted by nohal

In this very special case the solution has been at hand for a long time, simply use the attached GPX file either as a layer or simply import it.

Amazing, thank you nohal. Is it possible to document how you did this so I can produce Starlink H3 layers for other locations? Or have a downloadable H3 layer uploaded to https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...layers_library ?

[nohal]

I did it in QGIS with the H3 Toolkit plugin

The workflow is quite simple, once you know how to use QGIS...

- Generate the H3 size 5 grid over your area of interest
- Delete the cells you don't want
- Dissolve the cell polygons to get one shape covering the area
- Convert it to lines to get just the outline
- Create a GPX layer and copy the outline to it

To see what I'm doing I usually work on top of the OSM land polygons from https://osmdata.openstreetmap.de/dat...-polygons.html - makes it much more apparent than just guessing whether the coordinates are correct

It took about a minute for this file. And indeterminable amount of time over many years to get familiar with QGIS...