Starlink Beta Users HELP

[jmc42]

The new Starlink BETA is rolling out to thousands of users across the united states. The Beta price is $500 for a terminal, plus $99 a month for unlimted internet with 20-40 ms of latency.

If you are a beta tester or know someone who is, please take this out and try it on your boat. I am very curious if it can handle moderate pitch and roll. Even if it won't work in a storm, it will revolutionize internet access at sea.

More information available here:

https://arstechnica.com/information-...-500-up-front/

[WanderIVth]

Originally Posted by jmc42

The new Starlink BETA is rolling out to thousands of users across the united states. The Beta price is $500 for a terminal, plus $99 a month for unlimted internet with 20-40 ms of latency.

Following this thread.

I have seen the user dishes. I wonder if you could set up a gimbal system for it to help keep it stable and maintain connection. I wish I'd been selected for beta.

[Boat Guy]

This is certainly crawling before walking...

[Beausoleil]

Believe me - I'd be the first in line to test this. BUT - the current FCC certification and licensing to operate obtained by SpaceX/StarLink is for fixed operations, not mobile, not maritime mobile.

That being said, SpaceX is working with the USAF on testing for airborne operations. So, patiences, Grasshopper. You will be rewarded!

[LoudMusic]

I'm looking forward to Starlink on my boat as well, but I'm not expecting anything usable until next Summer.

Trust me, there are hundreds of thousands of small boaters excited about this. And hundreds of thousands more commercial vessels excited about this. It's going to happen.

[Dsanduril]

Last week there was this Twitter exchange with Elon:

On Tuesday, Twitter user Anton Kanerva asked Musk whether Starlink’s satellite dishes will work over “high-speed moving objects like trains.” He added: “It would be incredible if trains moving through the middle of nowhere finally could have stable high-speed internet connections!”

In response, Musk tweeted back: “Yes. Everything is slow to a phased array antenna.”

As noted, Starlink so far only has 15 licenses for mobile terminals, and those are all on their rocket recovery ships.

[Moontide]

If a beta tester comes through for you don't let anyone know. The agreement specifically states that they cannot talk to anyone about it except Starlink staff. This includes all social media which is a bummer because I am really looking forward to the system and am eager to get real details.



Hopefully it will work on boats as it will be a game changer for us, even if the final price stays at $99.

[Moontide]

Dsanduril, thanks. I had guessed that the phase array antenna might solve that problem since they have to cover a wide area to pickup multiple satellites. Also because the satellites are also moving relatively fast since they are in such a low orbit.

[GreenWave]

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[chris mac]

I had signed up to be a beta tester. Our address, and where we were at the time,is in canada.not high north but at least midway. So I was hopeful I would be picked.
Sadly, .no luck. I am interested to see how well it goes

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

In response, Musk tweeted back: “Yes. Everything is slow to a phased array antenna.”

Yes, a phased array antenna can change its beam direction in less than 5ms. The real questions is: does the antenna have the instrumentation to be able to compensate for the boat doing the watoosie under it?

Unfortunately, the first 700-ish birds did not have the sat-to-sat laser comms needed for the system to work mid-ocean. The last few launches do, & they're already de-orbiting some of the early birds, but it will take time before enough birds are up to form a full mesh. Given they're launching 2x60/month, I'd think they'd have a working mesh up by mid-21 or so.

The current user terminals consume almost 150W, or 12A@12v (300Ah/day). Static stations can turn theirs off to save power, but it's not clear if mobile users can, as there's currently no back-channel to say "I'm here & I need service." The system has to track you as you change cells.

I'm a bit confused at all the talk about licenses for UTs. Do Iridium sat-comm devices (phones, GO, etc) need special licenses? Ours didn't seem to.

Fingers crossed. Yes, quite a game changer.

[LoudMusic]

There might be a lot of answered questions in here for this group.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/co...k_us_anything/

Mostly they say availability to boats is "eventually", but that they are definitely working on it.

[B23iL23]

On the power usage reports from Beta users is that is uses around 110W on average which is better. The Reddit AMA also mentions that they are looking at reducing this, plus the cost of the antenna.

They (SpaceX) are also working on "mobility" but I wouldn't expect much on this until they get to their magic 1500/1600 sats and the coverage expands. Once they have that many sats they can add s/w that says "hello, I'm here and need service" instead of the current set up where the sat only provides coverage to the area where it knows you are located at.

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

Yes, a phased array antenna can change its beam direction in less than 5ms. The real questions is: does the antenna have the instrumentation to be able to compensate for the boat doing the watoosie under it?

Unfortunately, the first 700-ish birds did not have the sat-to-sat laser comms needed for the system to work mid-ocean. The last few launches do, & they're already de-orbiting some of the early birds, but it will take time before enough birds are up to form a full mesh. Given they're launching 2x60/month, I'd think they'd have a working mesh up by mid-21 or so.

The current user terminals consume almost 150W, or 12A@12v (300Ah/day). Static stations can turn theirs off to save power, but it's not clear if mobile users can, as there's currently no back-channel to say "I'm here & I need service." The system has to track you as you change cells.

I'm a bit confused at all the talk about licenses for UTs. Do Iridium sat-comm devices (phones, GO, etc) need special licenses? Ours didn't seem to.

Fingers crossed. Yes, quite a game changer.

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by B23iL23

... Once they have that many sats they can add s/w that says "Hello, I'm here and need service" instead of the current set up where the sat only provides coverage to the area where it knows you are located at.

Kevin, I agree with you that SW is easy to fix (we called it SMOP). But the problem isn't SW. The problem is radios. All of the usable comms on the birds are beams, AFAIK. It's possible that the UT can download the orbits into the future, & could maybe hit a bird with beam after being turned off for a while, but how long will the UT keep that data for? With LOTS of birds in lots of orbits, that's a LOT of info & orbits to keep track of.

[B23iL23]

The current setup is that the user terminals don't have any knowledge of where the sats are. There is no orbital map pre lpaded. They switch on and start scanning and searching until they find one.

Makes adding new sats easy, no updates to the user terminals needed and also any UT can request access anywhere.

So for mobile use, provided you have the sats and the geo you are in is not over subscribed then access should be ok.

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

Kevin, I agree with you that SW is easy to fix (we called it SMOP). But the problem isn't SW. The problem is radios. All of the usable comms on the birds are beams, AFAIK. It's possible that the UT can download the orbits into the future, & could maybe hit a bird with beam after being turned off for a while, but how long will the UT keep that data for? With LOTS of birds in lots of orbits, that's a LOT of info & orbits to keep track of.