Starlink on the mast

[nuru05]

I'm trying to get a good permanent home for my starlink and having some issues keeping it out of the way.

We are considering just upgrading to the in motion dish and putting it up on the mast. There are a couple companies that make a mount for just above my radar dome. Does anyone have any experience with this?

[jordanbigel]

I have observed some people try hard to find an "unobstructed" place to mount the SL dish believing that anything in the way is going to hurt reception. Mine is mounted on a rail just fwd the cockpit at chest level. I have no problems with reception. In my opinion, it is not necessary to have a mounting location which is 100% unobstructed.

PS. Since this photo was taken, I moved the dish about a 1.5ft further aft to get it out of the way of the boarding gate.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by jordanbigel

I have observed some people try hard to find an "unobstructed" place to mount the SL dish believing that anything in the way is going to hurt reception. Mine is mounted on a rail just fwd the cockpit at chest level. I have no problems with reception. In my opinion, it is not necessary to have a mounting location which is 100% unobstructed.

PS. Since this photo was taken, I moved the dish about a 1.5ft further aft to get it out of the way of the boarding gate.

What happens when you anchor or are sailing and the boat is turned 90* such that the dish is trying to see through the boom when tilted?

We have the same dishy and to get a consistent signal regardless of boat orientation we mounted it so that it is above the boom (sail material and soft bimini don’t matter). It has a bit of obstruction when looking along the boat through the mast, but otherwise it’s good. Even better is when it maintains a horizontal attitude, but when it does that seems to be random.

For the OP, short obstruction drop outs do matter for video calls and VPN connections, but not so much for streaming media and web browsing.

[jordanbigel]

Originally Posted by fxykty

What happens when you anchor or are sailing and the boat is turned 90* such that the dish is trying to see through the boom when tilted?

So far it has not caused any problems. Maybe I've just been lucky. Even when the mast casts a shadow on the dish and it's pointed right at it things seem to keep working.

[shimari]

I'm going with a Seaview 8' pole on the stern with their top plate. They do have a mast mount now - https://www.seaviewglobal.com/produc...SABEgI2i_D_BwE

Call them up and ask questions- customer service is amazing! They do custom work too.

[jleonar]

Originally Posted by jordanbigel

So far it has not caused any problems. Maybe I've just been lucky. Even when the mast casts a shadow on the dish and it's pointed right at it things seem to keep working.

Let me guess you aren't using apps that are impacted by latency. I guarantee that if you were to do zoom, google meets, or online gaming, you would see an impact. Where netflix or general web browsing wouldn't be impacted

[delphys44]

I bought the Starlink and then spent a month or more placing the dish on the rail or forward to the mast on the deck. Would work great at marina; at anchor always got at least partial obstruction and downgrade of signal as boat swung with wind/tide.
Would suggest just mounting high on stern, either on a pole or arch (as I did) ) and you’ll be quite happy and done with it.

[jordanbigel]

Originally Posted by jleonar

Let me guess you aren't using apps that are impacted by latency. I guarantee that if you were to do zoom, google meets, or online gaming, you would see an impact. Where netflix or general web browsing wouldn't be impacted

I use Zoom daily, though often half the people are audio only. No online gaming.

I do not doubt you are correct re: latency sensitive apps like games could be impacted IF the dish is aligned so that the mast is in the visual plane. I don't think Zoom is as much impacted by low latency as online games.

The vast majority of the time, the mast is not aligned with the dish. I may not have ever experienced that, I've only been using it about 9 months. I don't recall having seen it and noticed the dish was pointing right at the mast. Maybe it happened while no one was using the internet? So far so good.

[wholybee]

Most streaming apps like Netflix, Zoom, etc. do not require low latency as they have large buffers. If you are watching a movie on Netflix and kill the power to Starlink, the movie will keep playing almost a full minute. So, and outage of 2 seconds as a satellite moves behind the mast will be unnoticed. Gaming is another story. Probably also unnoticed, unless that 2 seconds is at a critical point in the game.

The distance from a narrow obstruction like a mast or boom is also important. if the dish is 10 or 15 feet away, the blocked area will be much smaller than if only a couple feet away. Also, if there are multiple satellites in view at the time, if one moves behind an obstruction signal isn't lost. One of the supposed advantages of the HP/flat dish is the ability to track more satellites at one time, so it is less affected by obstructions.

I would do anything possible to avoid mounting up the mast. On a bimini, arch, rail.