Quote:
Originally Posted by John_char
And here was I thinking there were several new posts about Starlink. Silly me.  |
I agree. OK, in other news unrelated to rectum-finders:
There's a
Starlink on Boats FB group for those who subscribe to the OTHER Evil Empire. Some blather in there, of course, but some nuggets of good info.
There's also a
Starlink for RVers and other mobile users FB group that's been useful. Mostly RVers, of course, but they're "land cruisers" much like us.
One thing to come out of this is that, unless you're at very high latitudes, Dishy's motors are NOT needed. There are plenty of birds straight overhead. This is actually a big deal, as it means Dishy can be mounted by grabbing the edges, thereby eliminating the only moving
parts (the motors probably aren't marine-quality anyway). OK, those who like to sail around rail-down might have problems here, but we prefer a more dignified sailing attitude.
There are videos of where to drill a hole in the back of Dishy to reach in & pull the
plug controlling the motors. Then the entire back can be sealed up. From memory, it's 5" in from the left edge & the bottom edge, when looking at the back (but don't trust me). The system will complain about stuck motors, but it will still
work, & after a while it will stop complaining.
The
Philippines seems to be the only (so far) SE Asian country to sign an agreement for StarLink, despite having to change one of their laws to do this. They'll probably put in a ground station near Manila, & possibly near Davao & Puerto Princesa as well. No word yet on when this will go live, but probably only a couple of months.
StarLink doesn't want you to transport Dishy to other
continents. Not sure why the limitation, but hopefully it will go away when the sat/sat laser-mesh goes active, as such a
rule would be terrible for us cruisers, as well as international
shipping & air flights. For now, a US system will work in
Canada,
Mexico,
Puerto Rico, & the USVI. European systems appear to work all over
Europe.
The oceans seem off-limits for now, probably because the US FCC hasn't issued the required "in-motion"
license to StarLink. Why this should affect policy in other countries is unknown, but there don't seem to be cells defined more than about 12nm
offshore, even though someone operating from those cells could easily hit a ground station. Completely artificial. Again, I'm hoping this limit will go away when the sat/sat laser-mesh goes active.
Having said that, someone sailing in the Med has reported continuous signal even when more than 12nm
offshore, so perhaps it's different there.
Musk has tweeted that the sat/sat laser-mesh should go active "about the middle of the year" but the consensus is that this is "Elon Time" & probably a bit ambitious. Still, there are currently about 2400 birds in orbit, & SpaceX has increased their launch cadence to about 50/week(!!) or ~200/month. They're only launched into very low orbits, so dud bird's orbits will decay & they'll burn up in the atmosphere quickly. Good birds then have to climb up to their operating orbits, which takes about 3 months. Their Hall-effect ion thrusters are very efficient, but extremely low powered, & they take too much of their
electrical budget to run their radios while they're thrusting, so they'll only come online when they reach their operational orbits. This means that about 600 launched birds are still climbing & not part of the operational constellation.
This means that there are about 500 of the laser-equipped birds operational now, with 50 more coming online every week. I'm not sure how many it will take for the mesh to start working.
Iridium does it with only 66 birds, but they're higher up, & I'm not sure of the range of the StarLink lasers.
Reports from those who've taken Dishy sailing are that it now retains lock on the satellites even in fairly heavy
weather & on relatively small cruising boats. Excellent news, since early reports with V1 Dishy said it would lose lock just making a slow turn in flat
water, even on big boats.
Someone cut their Dishy apart & removed the motors, revealing that the phased array & all the controlling
electronics are all in a very thin flat pan. He did this to see how it worked when mounted on his car, driving down the highway. He reported no problems (except when going under overpasses) at up to 80mph (130Kph). I imagine these will soon be fitted into the roof of Teslas, & probably all but invisible.
Hawaiian Airlines &
Delta are both experimenting with StarLink on their planes, but no word yet on when they'll go live. They're probably waiting for FCC "in-motion" approval.
In Tim Dodd's latest video (Everyday Astronaut) Musk claimed that the V2 birds are too big (or too heavy) to launch with Falcon9, & will have to wait for Star-Ship & Super-Heavy (which rumor says will get the green light from the FAA in 3 days). Musk also said that the V2 birds will have roughly 10x the capabilities of the current v1.5 birds, but he didn't elaborate.
Interested in smart boat technology, networking and all things tech
Re: Test Results: Starlink on a Sailboat Underway
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions