Samsonite801
Solar Wizard
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2020
- Messages
- 2,994
As I am continuing to develop my homestead property out in the desert where there is no easy power or easy Internet, several of our other shareholders on our co-op use traditional satellite Internet solutions, in which they complain about their service quality constantly. They tell me video streaming is impossible for the most part with these traditional solutions (without severe buffering issues, or highly reduced video quality). One old guy here compares the speed to the old dial-up modems on computers back in the day (which I remember about of course).
I decided to hold off on these traditional solutions because they all forced you into a 1 or 2 year contract. So in the meantime while I waited the YEAR + for Starlink to become available to me (once I paid the $99 reservation fee), I would just come out to my lot and not have connection to the world at all.
I never realized before about, how we've learned to take the Internet for granted. There were times where I realized I couldn't Google something, and I would have to write down all the topics I had questions on so I could remember to Google for the answers later on once I went back to where the connection was (since a lot of the time I would forget all the things I had wanted to check on later)...
Well it finally happened, Starlink shipped my equipment, I wired it in last night (finally), and all I can say is wow, this is a game-changer for the off-grid people to get a nice connection now. Installation was simple, it aims itself, basically you just put the equipment where you want it, plug a couple wires in, and run the app on your phone to set a couple things up and it just works and says Online...
Since there is no cell service out here either, I enabled the Wi-Fi calling on my iPhone, and was making phone calls that sounded perfect, no echo or delay (like people pausing, interrupting, or delaying to respond due to latency differential), You Tube works perfectly, of course HD quality plays great, low latency.
Just sitting out in the middle of a bare valley and I feel connected to the world again, I am happy to have waited longer for the good stuff, and not getting stuck into a contract (Starlink says you can cancel at any time).
I fashioned an 18000 pound non-penetrating ground mount system in my installation here so it's super strong for the desert winds:
I wired it to a tiny 300w inverter (so I don't have to run the big 2800w inverter in the motorhome all night), so I checked the amps on it real quick. It's at about 60w right now, sometimes fluctuates a bit, on boot-up it went as high as 7a for a few seconds (maybe to self-test the heater circuit in the dish or something):
The next step is, I am going to wire a 48v POE into the router-to-dish Ethernet cable (the one with funky connectors on both ends), so to not use AC input, and make it run on DC power directly.
Yes, it is possible to do (to convert the Starlink Gen 2 equipment, rectangle dish model, to work on DC power directly, finally found some people who've done it)...
I decided to hold off on these traditional solutions because they all forced you into a 1 or 2 year contract. So in the meantime while I waited the YEAR + for Starlink to become available to me (once I paid the $99 reservation fee), I would just come out to my lot and not have connection to the world at all.
I never realized before about, how we've learned to take the Internet for granted. There were times where I realized I couldn't Google something, and I would have to write down all the topics I had questions on so I could remember to Google for the answers later on once I went back to where the connection was (since a lot of the time I would forget all the things I had wanted to check on later)...
Well it finally happened, Starlink shipped my equipment, I wired it in last night (finally), and all I can say is wow, this is a game-changer for the off-grid people to get a nice connection now. Installation was simple, it aims itself, basically you just put the equipment where you want it, plug a couple wires in, and run the app on your phone to set a couple things up and it just works and says Online...
Since there is no cell service out here either, I enabled the Wi-Fi calling on my iPhone, and was making phone calls that sounded perfect, no echo or delay (like people pausing, interrupting, or delaying to respond due to latency differential), You Tube works perfectly, of course HD quality plays great, low latency.
Just sitting out in the middle of a bare valley and I feel connected to the world again, I am happy to have waited longer for the good stuff, and not getting stuck into a contract (Starlink says you can cancel at any time).
I fashioned an 18000 pound non-penetrating ground mount system in my installation here so it's super strong for the desert winds:
I wired it to a tiny 300w inverter (so I don't have to run the big 2800w inverter in the motorhome all night), so I checked the amps on it real quick. It's at about 60w right now, sometimes fluctuates a bit, on boot-up it went as high as 7a for a few seconds (maybe to self-test the heater circuit in the dish or something):
The next step is, I am going to wire a 48v POE into the router-to-dish Ethernet cable (the one with funky connectors on both ends), so to not use AC input, and make it run on DC power directly.
Yes, it is possible to do (to convert the Starlink Gen 2 equipment, rectangle dish model, to work on DC power directly, finally found some people who've done it)...
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