It has taken me a long time to be where I am today with the internet, however, I pulled the pin on Starlink internet, and canceled cable. I am very happy.
I have been with a local DSL provider for nine years and one month. Even though the provider promised me 5 Mbps the best they have been able to provide to the redoubt is 3 Mbps with an .8 Mbps upload. Intermitted internet has always been an issue at the redoubt. With the reliability issue it seems to be down more than our spotting electric is.
April 2022 found our electricity out for eight days along with our landline and internet service. Post that little drama, I started looking at alternatives.
One alternative was Starlink but it was not available for my location. Another was satellite internet services like Hughes. I have read a lot of reviews for them and it seemed like they were no better than our current service.
Back in February, a member of my radio club who works from home told me that they had just installed Starlink and was very satisfied. He claimed that he was hovering in the three digit Mbps numbers and I should look at it. I did and I ordered the service.
Musk has put together a rather interesting service in Starlink. First off, it was 100% DIY which I liked a lot as the kit included all that you will need. The general reviews were much higher than Hughes. Basically, you own your equipment and there will be no service man coming out to install it. I pulled the pin and ordered the service back in March of this year.
There was a cost starting out for the equipment which was $599- and a monthly fee of $120-. When ordered I was told that there would be a 4-6 month wait based on location.
The first week of May came around and I was prepping my garden when I started to hear my dog barking and tail wagging. She ran up to our parking area which she only does when the UPS driver is coming as there is usually a treat in his hand for her. Sure enough, it was the regular driver and W3OOF received her treat. Then I saw the driver drop off a medium sized box on my porch.
When it was time to take a break, I walked up to the cabin and there was a box from Starlink. Like a new kid at Christmas, I tore open the box.
The box contained a rectangle antenna that was about 12" x 18", two cables, and a roof stand. The directions were spotty in the box so I went to the Starlink site for directions. I jumped on the computer to do that and the first thing the directions directed me to do was, using the Startlink app scan the skyline with your phone to see if there was any obstructions. At ground level there was, however, they were to the east and south and most of the satellites I would be using were to my north which was clear of obstructions.
I boxed everything back up and put it off to the side of my porch to ponder on where I was going to install it.
May turned to June and June to July, when my first $120- bill was charged to my credit card for my Starlink service. At that point I figured that I might want to get hopping. I dragged out my thinking chair to a location where I could view the cabin and figure out where I could put the antenna. My plan slowly came together and decided it needed to go on a roof dormer on the west side of the cabin. But I needed to order a bracket for that application.
Luckily, Starlink has a store where they offer differing mounting options. Mine was a roof mount that allowed for the vertical positioning of the antenna. I ordered the bracket which set me back $29- and was promised delivery in 10-14 business days. Well on the fourth day, the delivery process began anew. W3OOF barks, runs to driveway with tail wagging and patiently waits for her favorite UPS driver. By the way, I pity the temporary UPS driver who shows up when our regular driver is on vacation. There is a story there which I will not go into. Well, I had my bracket quicker than expected.
I am not a fan of heights and MrsMac has forbidden me to crawl around on the roof since my last mishap. Another story which I will not bore you with. She suggested since the chimney sweep was coming the following week ask him, if he would install it on my roof. I asked him and he gave me a name of his son-in-law who would do it for $50- if I helped. The chimney sweep gave me his number and I called.
I called three times but not even a return call letting me know he was not interested. Wait till I tell our chimney sweep the next time we bump into each other. He will be rather annoyed. But I digress.
My friend from the radio club asked me at our July meeting if I had received the antenna and accessories from Starlink. I told him that I had and was having a hard time finding someone who would climb around on my roof to install it. Being the nice guy that he is, he volunteered to install it, this coming Saturday. Friday, I received a call from him that his heart rate was around 30 beats per minute and was at the emergency room. I don't know if 30 beats a minute is good or bad but the on staff heart doctor at the ER got all a fluster. After a scillion tests, they decided my friend needed a pacemaker. The following Thursday he went under the knife.
A week later, his wife called me to ask me to come right over to his house as he was going to install a dipole ham radio antenna a week after he had a pacemaker installed. I rushed over to offer advise, help and to scold him for doing what he was doing.
Received a phone call from my friend the Friday of Labor Day weekend letting me know that he and his wife were coming over to install my Starlink the next day. He called ahead of time as W3OOF does not like him as much as the UPS driver.
They arrived and MrsMac snagged his wife and they went into the cabin for coffee and cookies while my friend and I installed the antenna and set up the software.
My friend scooted up my roof like a monkey and came back down to gather his mise en place of tools needed. Roof tar, drill & bit, the Starlink mount, and the antenna which fit nicely into a backpack provided by Starlink for carrying the antenna aloft. In about 5-minutes he had discovered the roof rafter, spread the roof tar, and screwed down the roof mount. While he was doing that, I drilled a hole in the side of the dormer for the cable that runs from the antenna to the router. Once the antenna was installed, I fished the antenna cable to him through the hole and he plugged it into the antenna.
From start to finish, the whole process took 20 minutes.
We plugged the other end of the antenna cable to the router and plugged the power cable to the wall outlet and router. Using my phone and the Starlink app I set up the ID and password. Within about another 15-minutes the antenna moved up and down and around till it found the satellites it was looking for and we did a speed check. We were getting 140 Mbps with a 13 Mbps upload time. WOW! Far better than my 3 Mbps at best and my .8 Mbps upload time with the DSL.
Today, I average between a high of 198 Mbps and a low 41 Mbps with a consistent 20-ish Mbps upload speed. I have a tree which is located just NE of the cabin and that causes a slight downgrade of Mbps depending on time of day. Also, I discovered when it rains my Mbps drops a bit but never lower than 41 Mbps. A total win in my book.
Benefits of the Starlink system.
> Speed of your internet. This really comes in handy if you are running multiple devices.
> Starlink really has thought it out for the DIY weekend warrior.
> You own the equipment.
> Customer service was good, not great but they were quick to respond via email.
> They sent all that you needed. I did buy a tube of roof tar but in reality, you didn't need it.
> There is a function where you can turn on a internal heater during the winter when the ice and snow fly's.
> Delivery: They under promise and over deliver.
The flip side of that coin, disadvantages
> First your dollar outlay.
> The $120- fee a month.
> You can only get customer service/installation advice via email. At one point I screamed bloody murder because I could not get an answer to a simple question from Abdul. They did call me though and the gentleman who called did speak English as a first language. Question answered.
A few other things.
> We had a storm last week where we lost our power for 24-hours. I just redirected the router's power cord from grid electric to a dedicated SOLAR outlet. Viola, our internet was back up.
> We cancelled our cable service. We only had it for one channel, FoxNews. We used our basic TV antenna for local stations and programs. Since FoxNews canned Tucker Carlson we were not using the cable anyway.
> In lieu of cable we picked up Philo for $25- a month which has a lot of things MrsMac likes on it that our cable didn't.
> All in all, expense wise it was a wash. Let's see, former DSL was $99- a month for advertised 5 Mbps but we usually received 3 or less. We killed the cable which was $69- a month for very basic cable. $167- vs, the $145- for Starlink and Philo. One way to look at it is, with a $22- monthly savings, we will pay off the satellite initial cost in 27-mounts or so.
Bottom-line, I wish I had changed to Starlink sooner.
