Starlink antenna arrived today. Roof mount I ordered will be here in a week and a half. Already got a message from them telling me they are starting my monthly charge 14 days after they shipped the antenna. I am hoping the service works well and resolves my issue with getting good internet speed even though I am could hardly be considered rural. From a little looking they initially gave people 30 days but at some time shortened that. You can't order the accessories (like mounts) until your antenna order is ready to be filled. Seems like they could synchronize the shipments. Just a little irked at the way they handle this. I sent them a message 2 days ago and haven't had a response. Rigging up something temporary is going to be difficult. Anyone do something other than the standard mounts? Wish I still had an old directTV roof mount that I could adapt.
Got my starlink antenna! :) (but still waiting for mount)...
- Thread starter JimS
- Start date
pete_c
Guru
Great news Jim!!!!
Here for my roof mount satellite antenna used a pole that attached to the chimney and connected to that was a J-pole mount for small wide dish with 4 LNBs (for Dish and DTV way back).
Had the Davis Weather station initially mounted there but it was too hard to service so moved it to a J-Pole mount attached to the eave.
Still too difficult to service on the two story home moved the Davis Weather station to pole mounted on the deck then also used a Davis weatherstation mounted in the middle of a rough on the golf course that I could see from my house which worked out well for me cuz I compared the two weatherstations all the time.
Today have my DTV dish mounted on a pole next to the deck at ground level.
I was on the original Starlink list way back and had issues with XFinity transport. XFinity fixed their issues and I am good today so decided not to use Starlink.
There are many StarLink user posters on Reddit and here ==>
Starlink satellite internet
Here for my roof mount satellite antenna used a pole that attached to the chimney and connected to that was a J-pole mount for small wide dish with 4 LNBs (for Dish and DTV way back).
Had the Davis Weather station initially mounted there but it was too hard to service so moved it to a J-Pole mount attached to the eave.
Still too difficult to service on the two story home moved the Davis Weather station to pole mounted on the deck then also used a Davis weatherstation mounted in the middle of a rough on the golf course that I could see from my house which worked out well for me cuz I compared the two weatherstations all the time.
Today have my DTV dish mounted on a pole next to the deck at ground level.
I was on the original Starlink list way back and had issues with XFinity transport. XFinity fixed their issues and I am good today so decided not to use Starlink.
There are many StarLink user posters on Reddit and here ==>
Starlink satellite internet
wkearney99
Senior Member
JimS said:
Check local craigslist? Someone probably has leftover gear they'd part with cheap.
pete_c
Guru
I have an old DTV mount here somewhere in the garage. You can have it paying for shipping.
Nevermind.... Checked and the mount pole(s) was sitting on 4 DTV dishes and I threw the dishes out along with the mounting poles a couple of months ago.
Here just modded my DTV antenna mounting pole with another attached aluminum pole 1.5" going up some 6 feet for the weather station.
The bracket I used makes it easy to service the Davis Weather station. The rain bucket needs a yearly cleaning.
Nevermind.... Checked and the mount pole(s) was sitting on 4 DTV dishes and I threw the dishes out along with the mounting poles a couple of months ago.
Here just modded my DTV antenna mounting pole with another attached aluminum pole 1.5" going up some 6 feet for the weather station.
The bracket I used makes it easy to service the Davis Weather station. The rain bucket needs a yearly cleaning.
Weather here looks mild for the next week and I was eager to get it going so I just mounted the standard mount to two pieces of short 2 x 4 and placed it at the edge of the roof sitting against the gutter. It's pretty stable. It's a little unclear what they intend that mount for and I thought about just using it for the permanent roof mount. It connected and speed tests look good although it complained the mast wasn't close enough to vertical. From what I have read the limit is 40 degrees and its on an 8/12 slope which I calculate to be about 34 degrees. Should have the adjustable mast from Starlink in a week or two. Just will watch for windy forecast and pull it down if I see that. I fiddled with the mount position and cycled power a couple of times and ended up where I started without the tilt warning.
I don't have it fully connected to my network yet. Want to use an old ddwrt router to bridge the starling wifi to my wired ethernet but don't have that working yet. Speed to android phone shows 43 Mbps. This seems low as both ends should support higher speeds. Speed from starlink router to internet shows 150 Mbps. Waiting on the roof mount and ethernet adapter. Here's what I did for a temporary mount in the meantime with the mount that comes with it. Thought about just using it for permanent mount - it would be very stable. I complained about the start of charges before I got all the parts. It took several days for a response but I got a response stating the terms were that charges would start 14 days they shipped but in the interest of customer service (not their exact words) they would give me a 1 month credit. Seems fair.
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wkearney99
Senior Member
You may want to second-guess using an old ddwrt setup. Those didn't have a lot of throughput, speed-wise. You could end up choking your speed if the router can't keep up. Do some searches on wire speed throughput on whatever model hardware you're considering.
pete_c
Guru
Want to use an old ddwrt router to bridge the starling wifi to my wired ethernet but don't have that working yet.
Yeah read that you cannot bridge the LAN to WAN on the Starlink SOHO router.
Nevermind...see that you can with new OS...
A recent Starlink gen2 router and phone app update lets you disable the router functionality and puts the starlink setup into bridge mode. You can now directly connect your router to the external ethernet adapter. No more Starlink wifi or dhcp server. Your router/gateway will get the public IP address. This really great. Well it's not quite public public - right now it's CGNAT. So you can't do inbound traffic and a lookup will not show the IP address you get assigned to your router from the dish. Just to be clear on that. But you do get the IP address directly assigned and there's at least no double NAT at home. Starlink is a great offgrid internet access solution.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/y3GB9tABx50[/youtube]
An older router with DD-WRT will not have Gb interfaces on it.
On Reddit see:
The J mount used by Dish Network is almost perfect fit for the StarLink,
These are available on Amazon for as little as $17 USD. Not a roof mount but rather an eave mount. It is sturdy enough for roof mount.
https://preview.redd.it/81uvv88hkof61.jpg?width=3418&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=78d714d8e29ed49b26ede2305c503f3639b5ab34
Yeah read that you cannot bridge the LAN to WAN on the Starlink SOHO router.
Nevermind...see that you can with new OS...
A recent Starlink gen2 router and phone app update lets you disable the router functionality and puts the starlink setup into bridge mode. You can now directly connect your router to the external ethernet adapter. No more Starlink wifi or dhcp server. Your router/gateway will get the public IP address. This really great. Well it's not quite public public - right now it's CGNAT. So you can't do inbound traffic and a lookup will not show the IP address you get assigned to your router from the dish. Just to be clear on that. But you do get the IP address directly assigned and there's at least no double NAT at home. Starlink is a great offgrid internet access solution.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/y3GB9tABx50[/youtube]
An older router with DD-WRT will not have Gb interfaces on it.
On Reddit see:
The J mount used by Dish Network is almost perfect fit for the StarLink,
These are available on Amazon for as little as $17 USD. Not a roof mount but rather an eave mount. It is sturdy enough for roof mount.
https://preview.redd.it/81uvv88hkof61.jpg?width=3418&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=78d714d8e29ed49b26ede2305c503f3639b5ab34
wkearney99
Senior Member
Sounds good.
That was the whole reason I bailed on ddwrt and switched to a fanless industrial PC running pfsense. Wire-speed performance. The various ddwrt-compatible hardware I had at the time was woefully unable to keep up with the FIOS gigabit connection we've got. Just because a device can light up a gigE connection link doesn't mean it'll actually pass packets at that speed.
That was the whole reason I bailed on ddwrt and switched to a fanless industrial PC running pfsense. Wire-speed performance. The various ddwrt-compatible hardware I had at the time was woefully unable to keep up with the FIOS gigabit connection we've got. Just because a device can light up a gigE connection link doesn't mean it'll actually pass packets at that speed.
I think you can bridge it but that's not the issue. It has no connector for LAN side wired connection. Only has the connector for the power cord and cable to antenna. Apparently on the first version (round antenna) there was a wired port. There is no connector on the router for the current square antenna version but they have an add on box to give you a wired connection. Have one on order but haven't looked into exactly how it works.pete_c said:
I need to check out the details of that. If it doesn't pass the true external IP that may cause me some issues.pete_c said:
As for speed, I expect to be around 100 Mb from the Starlink so Gb interface probably won't gain me much. And I am moving from 6Mb DSL so 100 Mb will be awesome.
pete_c
Guru
Ahh....
I would recommend using a PFSense router.
What hardware did you get with the original Starlink dish?
I just upgraded my old Haswell i3 based 16Gb 6 Intel Gb Port DIY'd PFSense box here to two smaller on the telco wall routers...
1 - Qotom 4 port AES-NI 8Gb box
https://www.amazon.com/Qotom-Q330G4-Fanless-Ethernet-Firewall-Computer/dp/B076PKKL5C
2 - Jetway 6 port 8 Gb box (back up).
https://www.jetwaycomputer.com/JBC390F541XA.html
I have both of these mounted side by side on a din rail.
I do also have another Jetway 2 port AES-NI compatible box here but using it now for a new HA / Homeseer box and another Qotom PFSense firewall in house #2.
Doing IPSec (initially), OpenVPN and now Wireguard. Wireguard is fastest but OpenVPN is easiest to set up.
I would recommend the purchase of a dedicated small footprint Firewall box (multiple nics)...
Qotom, Protectli or Jetway. There are more. I prefer Intel CPUs for this stuff versus whatever.
BTW support for Qotom is lackluster...well built computer and no support is really needed.
Here primary WAN is XFinity and secondary is a T-Mobile LTE CPE. I cannot bridge that interface LAN to WAN but just redid my PFSense connection putting the T-Mobile IPv6 address in the PFSense configuration.
RTT on XFinity is 9.2ms
RTT on the T-Mobile CPE is 59.9ms
I can stream, use VOIP et al on the T-Mobile CPE plus it has an RJ11 telephone jack on it.
The CPE is a 3rd party device with a T-Mobile SIM card on it.
Testing using VPN on the PFSense CPE and it works fine for streaming et al and works to call home from the internet.
I would recommend using a PFSense router.
What hardware did you get with the original Starlink dish?
I just upgraded my old Haswell i3 based 16Gb 6 Intel Gb Port DIY'd PFSense box here to two smaller on the telco wall routers...
1 - Qotom 4 port AES-NI 8Gb box
https://www.amazon.com/Qotom-Q330G4-Fanless-Ethernet-Firewall-Computer/dp/B076PKKL5C
2 - Jetway 6 port 8 Gb box (back up).
https://www.jetwaycomputer.com/JBC390F541XA.html
I have both of these mounted side by side on a din rail.
I do also have another Jetway 2 port AES-NI compatible box here but using it now for a new HA / Homeseer box and another Qotom PFSense firewall in house #2.
Doing IPSec (initially), OpenVPN and now Wireguard. Wireguard is fastest but OpenVPN is easiest to set up.
I would recommend the purchase of a dedicated small footprint Firewall box (multiple nics)...
Qotom, Protectli or Jetway. There are more. I prefer Intel CPUs for this stuff versus whatever.
BTW support for Qotom is lackluster...well built computer and no support is really needed.
Here primary WAN is XFinity and secondary is a T-Mobile LTE CPE. I cannot bridge that interface LAN to WAN but just redid my PFSense connection putting the T-Mobile IPv6 address in the PFSense configuration.
RTT on XFinity is 9.2ms
RTT on the T-Mobile CPE is 59.9ms
I can stream, use VOIP et al on the T-Mobile CPE plus it has an RJ11 telephone jack on it.
The CPE is a 3rd party device with a T-Mobile SIM card on it.
Testing using VPN on the PFSense CPE and it works fine for streaming et al and works to call home from the internet.
