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Comment by parsimo2010 | Hacker News Reader

parsimo2010

Other users have measured power consumption around 100W constant in operation. https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/l22f1u/power_cons...

Power consumption could probably be a bit lower, but there are limits. Keep in mind that this is a phased array maintaining a relatively high bandwidth and high SNR link with the satellite. This is complicated microwave electronics design, a whole different ball game than old grandpas bragging about how they made a contact with someone across the ocean with 5W on their homebuilt HF radio. Starlink may have also made a conscious decision to make the user terminals "overpowered" so they can use a less sensitive receiver on the satellite, saving SpaceX weight, power usage, construction costs, and launch costs. The cost of more power usage is paid for by the user with an extra penny per month in their electric bill.

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More like $10/month, not a penny.

Yep, for me it would be $8.50.

For reference, this is an order of magnitude greater than the typical power consumption for existing satellite dishes / 4G modems, which typically operate at around 10W of power consumption.

For reference, most existing satellite dishes are receive only, and 4G modems only have to close link on a tower a few miles away, and at RFs where atmospheric attenuation is much lower.

Huh? You think existing satellite internet is receive only? How exactly would the web work in such a system?

That's assuming that you could get the power consumption down to zero, which is impossible. While a penny was an exaggeration, a 5W power savings over a month is about 50 cents savings on someone's power bill.

> Keep in mind that this is a phased array maintaining a relatively high bandwidth and high SNR link with the satellite.

Is it transmitting anything to the satellite when you are not actually trying to send internet data?

It's definitely doing... something. I had my Kill-A-Watt in it for a few hours with some usage and lots of idle periods, and between the dish and router, power consumption was never below 94W. Average around 104W, peaks at 124W.

Motors weren't being used during my measurement period either.

The dish gets pretty warm in operation (it was already a warm spring day, so it wasn't trying to de-ice or anything).

My guess is that it's always communicating with the Satellites to adjust its position.

For anyone interested in a teardown, Shahriar at The Signal Path is a pro and he did one here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6MfM8EFkGg

Highly recommended. Goes deep into the antenna design and overall components (and why it costs so much to manufacture).

Are you in the UK? (Wondering where pennys are still in common usage.)

Here in Australia, for 100W / hour I'm going to be paying ~ A$250 / year to keep it powered. That's about 160 euro, or 200 usd.

And it has 2 motors for dynamic aiming

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