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Comment by ghuntley | Hacker News Reader

Hey folks. I’ve had Starlink (standard service) mounted on my van for the last three months travelling around Australia with roaming off. Has been a game changer for working remotely and helping build Gitpod. It works just fine even when driving [1] or at techno bush doofs [2].

[1] https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdXwqGrP/?k=1

[2] https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdXwbq2b/?k=1

Happy to answer any questions.

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Nice! I took Starlink with me on few road trips so far with my Model 3 and rigged it up to work off my car's battery. I did have to change my service address prior to arriving at new locations but it worked fine nonetheless. With the new roaming option, that's even easier now. I wrote about it on my blog for those interested: https://blog.oxplot.com/powering-starlink-on-the-go-with-tes...

Haven't yet had to change my service location. It's still using my residential address circa 2,344km away from me. From time-to-time the app displays "not in service address" for a couple moments then it disappears. Roaming is disabled / wasn't even an option when first started doing this.

Interesting. What I noticed was that without changing service address, it would be in search mode for hours without going online. After the change, it would come to life in minutes. I did my trips late last year. I'm sure things are changing fast week to week as more satellites (and thus more bandwidth) is put into orbit.

That TikTok voice is actually painful to hear. Surely there must be some better way to narrate your videos.

It is a low quality voice, but somehow it adds a bit of comedic value to videos. A more natural voice would ironically be less funny IMO.

I love the TikTok voices. I guess it's very subjective.

Great idea. Opens up so many opportunities. For me the idea of working with my clients while sailing a yacht around is perhaps finally within reach.

From the photos I think you still have to set the antenna somewhere stable to use it, so it won't work at sea or maybe even at anchor. Don't get me wrong, it'd be cool just to be able to sail around and have low-latency high-bandwidth access in every port!

Here’s a pretty good report on the state of Starlink on a boat https://seabits.com/starlink-finally-useful-aboard/

Cheers

I have picked up the dish in hand and walked around my rural block of land whilst on a social Google Meet call with a co-worker at Gitpod. He was wondering the same. Will it work? Turns out the answer is yes. Was pretty wild walking around a paddock with iPhone in one hand and Starlink auto homing in the other. Didn’t really miss a beat until I tried spinning on the spot lol.

While they are officially recommending mounting the antenna rigidly, lots of people (including the grandparent post) report it working just fine when driving or otherwise moving dynamically. This isn't too surprising, since the phased array technology they're using allows instantaneous beam steering, and they need to support some amount of it anyway for high winds and wobbly mounts.

Their license only allows it to be used in fixed installations.

I suspect that the "while stationary" text is just lawyerspeak so they don't get accused of violating the license. If too many people post videos of using it while driving down the highway, they might have to add technical restrictions so they don't get fined for violating the license.

It's a phased array antenna though, so that is only a software problem until it isn't.

Maybe hack a gimbal mount to put it on?

Not needed. See previous comment.

Been dreaming about this for years, but sailing is so involved that I don't think it's really possible to have enough focus.

Yeah, I had no idea how involved it was until I went on a week long YT solo sailing across the <insert body of water> binge. Mad props to those people.

Working on vacation isn't as glorious as you'd imagine either.

Your family is on vacation meanwhile you maintain boat, plan, organise visas & paperwork, cook and also make moneys...

And rig their gear.

True, it is involved, but any more than living in a city? Maybe sail a few days then stop in port for a week or more.

The biggest question they don't answer is: How much does it cost? How much up front, and how much recurring?

Also, does it need to have a completely unobstructed view (i.e. can it be set up right beside the RV if the area is a little sketchy?) How much do overhead trees interfere?

Overhead trees, buildings and bridges etc do indeed inhabit the signal greatly. How it manifests is dropouts for 10-30 seconds every 5 minutes or so. The app clearly shows where instructions are and service expectations with the obstacles. When the dish is mounted on your van it’s simple to reverse park and determine where is good. Typically I get out of the van and look where the dish is pointing (usually due south) and adjust van as needed. As vans need solar, I don’t find myself parking under trees because solar needed to charge batteries and tree branches destroy vans in bad weather.

Costs are not even worth discussing. It’s how I earn income. As such portions are tax deductible and loss of a days productivity due to bad internet (let’s say you are only using 4g) at a campsite you haven’t been to before is disastrous in comparison to cost of multi homed internet.

Perhaps the direct question: how much does it cost?

$139aud/month. Nothing.

The RV service for Colorado - $707 upfront w/ first month, $135/mo thereafter. Looks like Metro Denver is on the waitlist for 2023. Interesting.

You can download the app and test your location. It needs a specific chunk of sky depending on your location.

Price wise, the kit is now about 700 EUR and service is 100 EUR a month.

The cost varies by country. They give the order link right there. You punch in address and it shows you the price.

So yes, it's answered.

I usually search for things like "price", "costs", "check for service" etc. Things that indicate "this is where you find the price". Hiding it behind the "order" button is just silly because I'm not going to order before I know how much it costs!

I agree. They should turn the Order now button into Get price and order now. Plenty of space for that.

Btw, the quote I got is

Hardware €644.00

Shipping & Handling €75.00

Service €124.00 /mo

Due Today €719.00

That's for an address in Italy. Four times as much as I'm paying for a truly unlimited 4G connection (some 30 Mb/s maximum, I'm far away from the base station.) I'm paying 7.95 for the 4G SIM in my phone, capped at 90 GB per month, similar speed at home, different base station.

Four times the price of fully unlimited 4G for a much better connection with more availability than 4G seems fair to me.

If you don't need starlink, then don't get it.

But if you have a cabin in the Italian alps where its either Starlink or else, then 124 / month seems like a much better deal than having no internet at all. Particularly if with those 124 / month then one or more people can live there and work earning multiple thousand euros per month of income (vs zero income living there without Starlink).

If you have access to solid 3GPP (LTE) based wireless last mile at a good price your location is not the target market for starlink.

Italian internet is extremely cheap TBH

> I'm not going to order before I know how much it costs!

A logical conclusion to this is that, if you begin the order flow, you will discover the price before finally submitting your order.

This may be intentional. For example, if demand for their service is still exceeding supply, they may be targeting customers who are less price conscious.

Actually, in my case I put my address and got the next screen asking for PII with the text:

  > Deposit Due Today $99.00

But no final price. The service is not yet available in my area, the site says that it is expected in 2023, so presumably they do not know how to price it yet. That makes one wary to put down a deposit.

Mine shows the same deposit and price of $110 /mo. Along with $599 for equipment.

Midwest.

I put in 11 Wall St ny, ny and it costs 110 USD per month, ~707 USD for hardware (including tax/shipping, base cost is 599) and a 99 deposit up front

I have a first gen terminal, what real world load in watts are you seeing, assuming you've put it on a wattmeter and it's a v2 rectangular?

About 25w-50w. Nothing really.

50W is not nothing when running off of batteries. It's not a lot on its own but it all adds up quick. 50W for Starlink, 20W for a laptop, add in lights, a fridge, phone, etc and suddenly it's more than you thought it'd be.

Wow, so even in non-ideal conditions at mid-latitudes, a standard 250W 1m^2 solar panel with small battery could power the receiver. Nice.

This will be a game changer in terms of ensuring I have high-speed 'net access when my partner is doing locum work in the middle of central QLD and other places. Any surprises using this in rural aus?

I've used it all over Kangaroo Island (SA), on the salt lakes of tyrrell (VIC), a Westfield carpark (NSW) and in the middle of nowhere in remote central QLD. According to the service coverage maps anything north of Rockhampton won't work (haven't been that far north yet) and there's a straight line to Katherine (NT) and anything above that doesn't work so it isn't a complete solution for doing 4wd red-dirt exploration but it's the best thing available for remote work in Australia and knocks the socks off LTE :)

Ah that's awesome to know! Can't wait to get into it when we eventually start doing locum work. Would be awesome to be able to go out to those areas with my partner and still do my job: LTE is rough for a lot of what I need, but I'm also easily able to be 100% remote!

I have a mate using it about 100km west of gc, it works well.

Looking for my parents to get it in FNQ daintree. Should be no surprises.

Whats wrong the the DSL out that way ( IIRC most of central queensland has DSL2+ ) ?

> Whats wrong the the DSL out that way

Nothing, other than we're never going to be in one place for long, and being reliant on whatever Wifi happens to be wherever we are staying is a bit of a pain. And LTE chokes and dies with the sort of bandwidth I need from it for work, sadly

Yeah, I understand that feeling very well. I think Starlink is going to be the best option for you that way. The 5G connections are "lacking" in that area.

Your vids seem like weird commercials

Hey for what its worth I went to check out Gitpod and followed the 'Try Now' button, logged in and was presented with an empty Workspace with no suggestion/direction of how to make use of the service. If you could provide a sample project (maybe just a Hello World) to demo the power of Gitpod I think that would go far in converting random people like myself who stumble across the service.

All of a sudden I understand why the guitar guy from Fury Road is called the "Doof Warrior". Learn something new every day.

What is a techno bush doof?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doof

In my experience in New Zealand, a doof is a private party in a rural location that you need an invite to or contacts, usually with music DJs and drugs involved. I wouldn’t call large festivals Doofs, as the Wikipedia article does, although perhaps the word has been co-opted by larger events, or has a different meaning from the little I have used the word. I would guess the word derives from doof doof music, named after a heavy bassline sound.

Rhymes with boofhead, or poofter, or woof in NZ (sorry, I couldn’t think of better words with the correct sound, Aussie & NZ English have some unique vowels, and English dialects have wayyyy too many different vowel sounds to easily cross reference). Someone says doof in this Aussie vid, which has the right atmosphere to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iavVc_23-NM

In north American slang to "boof" is to consume an illicit drug or mind altering substance by inserting it into the rectum.

I believe that’s called “shelving” in NZ - however drug culture really isn’t my thing though, so I could be entirely wrong.

Doof rhymes with German luft[1] although maybe the vowel is stretched more than in luft. Doof doesn’t rhyme with roofie.

[1] https://forvo.com/word/luftballons/

Australian outdoors techno focused rave.

How long after the van stops moving does the connection get established?

Starlink at 110km/h works fine if you are going in a straight line. It's when one does a whole bunch of turns navigating around suburban streets when service isn't great so have it configured as a primary link with my 4g array (https://ghuntley.com/internet) as the fallback for those type of scenarios. After the van stops moving it takes about 1 minute at max to relock and be functional as max speeds. Essentially what happens when lock is lost is the dish goes flat and looks right up (even when driving), finds a satellite and provides marginal connectivity, about a minute after that point it slants and provides exceptional connectivity.

From what I understand, in the US the FCC licensing for fixed location transmitters, relocatable transmitters, and transmitting while in motion are different (sorry can't remember the official terms). These stations may not be approved to transmit while in motion, and so Starlink may put technical restrictions in place to prevent use while moving. The license applications they put in for ruggedised terminals, intended for marine use and the like, requested ability to transmit in motion, but I think these are standard terminals (certainly not gimbled or gyro stabilzed) and aren't covered by that license. We'll have to wait and see until people start receiving stations and testing them out.

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