Starlink Mini

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Martin9700

Just my .02 but I don't think Mini will ever be that good for boats. The bigger dishes have the ability to track the satellites much better then a little tiny one. With the boat rocking, trying to hit a moving target the dish will need the extra surface area to keep a lock.

Now, if you're camping at the state park that little thing will be fine as long as you can find some open sky and having the router integrated in the dish makes it ideal for overlanders where space is a lot more limited.

I wouldn't stress on the prices right now. Elon has a LONG history of making his early adopters pay a premium price before lowering it for general consumers. Might take a year or two but it usually comes down.

The satellites are moving along at a few thousands mph even if the dish is stationary. For years the official word from SpaceX was you needed the high performance dish for it to work in motion and the smaller standard dish worked fine.

I do agree there isn't much downside to just waiting for things to shake out though. Someone will get one and put it on a boat eventually.

[wholybee]

From an RF standpoint, the smaller dish does 2 (well, really they are the same thing) things. First, it has less gain. The smaller dish works now because newer generation Satellites have more power(I assume, I don't know the specs). Second, a smaller dish has greater beamwidth. The phased array steers a beam at the moving Satellites. A large dish has a narrow beam and that steering mush be very precise. A small dish has a wider beam that is more forgiving.

How do those things add up to how it works on a boat? We probably won't know until people try it. But my guess is that it will be fine, and might be more forgiving with a sudden sharp move than the older generations.

[CaptainRivet]

The mini will also be a good 2nd dish onboard with 2 regional roam contracts to avoid paying 400$ global roam plan as you can eg move your residential adress on one while its service is paused and the other is active.
Eg you are in the med and going to caribean so i eg have the no1 with a med adress and then move the 2nd to caribean regional roam and for crossing to canaries and ocean you use the paid ocean option from no1. As soon as you are in caribean pause no1.
And for 200$ thats a very good deal, even to have 3 with 3 regional room contracts to avoid 400$ per month global roam.

[EmeraldCoastSailor]

And I just bought the V3 that went down $100. It was purchased for big RV camping trip but I was hoping to try it on boat as well.

[Mal Reynolds]

First reviews coming out: https://youtu.be/rQClAcr_U6Y?feature=shared

Looks really great for us direct current oriented people.

[Mal Reynolds]

Better follow up review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uHSmgcBLwY

TLDR:
- Worked in motion for a while, unclear how fast he was going
- Speeds 100mbs when panel aligned, drops when out of alignment to 40-50 or as low as 20
- Watts ranged in 20's to low 30's. Higher at startup. Tested a USB-C to 5.5mm cord and it worked fine - rather than using the included AC adapter.
- Built in Wifi range ~100ft (line of sight)

[TJ D]

Unbelievable what a game-changer this stuff is. It wasn't but a few years ago we were paying $8/MB on our Fleet Broadband, which cost 5k for the equipment. Really great.


Not long before that, it was Sailmail and a PACTOR II modem via SSB.


Ham radio phone patches in the 90's...


Technology is a marvel.

[Mal Reynolds]

Originally Posted by TJ D

Unbelievable what a game-changer this stuff is. It wasn't but a few years ago we were paying $8/MB on our Fleet Broadband, which cost 5k for the equipment. Really great.


Not long before that, it was Sailmail and a PACTOR II modem via SSB.


Ham radio phone patches in the 90's...


Technology is a marvel.

No kidding. Connectivity is moving so fast. Next year it's likely we will be texting (SMS) directly to satellites from our cell phones.

[fxykty]

The Mini is certainly interesting and will likely become the preferred alternative for cruisers with the smaller footprint, lower power usage and DC power input. However, it seems that you can only use it with Mini-specific plans and those are ridiculously limited (according to this PC Mag story https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-...data-caps-need). If this is the case, then the Mini makes no sense for primary Internet access and we’ll just have to stick with Dishy.

[Gone Gypsy]

We have Starlink at home and got the early invite to get a mini for $599 and the $30 service charge. We were excited for 12v, lower power and no external modem. The 50GB killed the deal. I work from home or boat and we typically burn 400GB a month at home.

We will wait to see if the data plan changes. If not we will get a full size and Roam plan after hurricane season when we head down island.

[FlyingScot]

Originally Posted by Statistical

The satellites are moving along at a few thousands mph even if the dish is stationary. For years the official word from SpaceX was you needed the high performance dish for it to work in motion and the smaller standard dish worked fine.

I doubt the mini has worse tracking abilities. Now it may have a narrower field of view. HP can see 160 deg of the sky, standard 145 deg. Maybe mini is less but the flipside is each year starlink puts up more and more sats. There are now usually many overhead at one time.

According to the specifications found here: https://www.starlink.com/specifications?spec=5
The Mini, Standard Actuated and Standard all have 110 degree field of view.
The High Performance and the Flat High Performance both have 140 degree field of view.

I have ordered a second Mini on the stationary plan for $225 shipped and $38/mo unlimited. I have paused our Roam Mini and will use that after we start moving again late this year. It is currently $64/mo for unlimited. It's taking about a week from order to delivery in Guatemala from CA, USA via DHL. We won't be back to the boat for 3 more weeks. Can't wait to test them in person. Once we confirm that they work for us, I will pause our Gen 2 (Standard Actuated). We were going to take it to our property in Bonaire, but since SL started enforcing the ToS, presumably from pressure from the ABC island governments, we may just sell it.