Starlink mini now released.

[Sea Change]

It looks like Starlink is no longer going to work in certain territories- including about half of the Caribbean. I'm not sure whether this is down to SpaceX or the individual countries and their regulators.
I'll also be the first to admit that I don't fully understand the situation.
Anybody care to explain what's going on?

 

[billskip]

It looks like Starlink is no longer going to work in certain territories- including about half of the Caribbean

Their promotional area availability map shows ok for the Caribbean except of course Venezuela...

 

[Zing]

Antigua has always been a no go zone. It works fine. Relax, though I know it must be hard.

 

[Sea Change]

It's definitely becoming harder to rely on Starlink. This from a Grenada Facebook group:

starlink deactivated my internet today - over 60 days outside of service adress country - I'm registered in tobago and have to switch to boat tarif (284&/month) anyone having the same issue. may be we could organise a starlink reactivation trip to tobago?

 

[bergie]

It's definitely becoming harder to rely on Starlink.

Do we know for a fact that's with a regional roaming and not a domestic plan? If they start requiring going to your "home country" every two months with the roam plan, that's certainly problematic. Theoretically we could ship the Starlink to a friend, get them to turn it on, and ship back. But that also gets expensive quickly.

Oh well, I guess we can always go back to buying local SIM cards when coastal. The boat still has a very good LTE modem, so that's at most an inconvenience. But bigger question is what to get for weather access while offshore if Starlink goes out of the picture. Iridium Go is both expensive and difficult to suspend/resume. Maybe time to look for SSB?

We only went Starlink when they had an official solution for offshore usage (mobile priority data). If they're again shifting their terms, I'll definitely not be upgrading to the Mini, at least until the dust settles and we know what the new deal is like. No way we can pay 200€+ per month for internet.

 

[Sea Change]

I guess we'll be sticking with our inReach and a trusted friend to relay weather info. It's cheap, and it works.

 

[Koeketiene]

I guess we'll be sticking with our inReach and a trusted friend to relay weather info. It's cheap, and it works.

Works for me too - found it cheaper and more reliable than the Iridium Go I had before.

 

[bergie]

Do we know for a fact that's with a regional roaming and not a domestic plan? If they start requiring going to your "home country" every two months with the roam plan, that's certainly problematic. Theoretically we could ship the Starlink to a friend, get them to turn it on, and ship back. But that also gets expensive quickly.

Ok, now we know: Regional Roam is gone. They hit us also with a 22% price increase, but that's less of an issue given that we will have to cancel our plan in two months anyway...

 

[Sea Change]

I wonder how quickly the Chinese satellites will be up and running...

 

[Trident]

You don't need to cancel after two months - just change address to the nearest mate, marina, house you notice walking down the street in the new country. Its all done one line and no credit check of that address is done so just pick a cafe in Rome or a gun shop in Arizona as your address if you don't have a marina berth, camp site etc that you can use as a "realistic" address.

Starlink don't care - its the individual countries that do and want a link to the country for internet users - so they've done what's needed to keep their licences and still made it easy for users to change to new addresses with zero hassle

 

[Seven Spades]

From what I can see new installations of Starlink will no longer work on a boat. The Mini, Standard and Extreme dishes are no longer "actuated" which means they won't re-orient themselves as the boat swings at anchor or gently rocks at sea. Instead you are supposed to use your mobile phone and manually align the dish. I hope I am wrong but it seems that you need to buy a Gen2 dish second hand to get actuation.

Please tell me I am reading this wrongly.

 

[bergie]

From what I can see new installations of Starlink will no longer work on a boat. The Mini, Standard and Extreme dishes are no longer "actuated" which means they won't re-orient themselves as the boat swings at anchor or gently rocks at sea.

We have the v2 dishy on our boat, and disabled actuation from it when that became available in software. We also don't turn it manually. Works totally fine as-is, and doesn't spend so much time spinning around when booting up.

We've now had it non-actuated for a couple of months, and that includes quite a few different anchorages, as well as a Biscay crossing. We don't have the power budget to keep Starlink on all the time, and instead run it for an hour or two per day.

 

[Seven Spades]

So is your dish mounted dead flat?

 

[bergie]

So is your dish mounted dead flat?

Almost. There is just a slight angle to make water drain off.

 

[st599]

I wonder how quickly the Chinese satellites will be up and running...

I don't think Bezos is using Chinese satellites. With Amazon Kuiper satellites already entering orbit and Amazon having some interesting patents in phased array antennas, we're in for a price war in the near future.

 

[papaver19]

From what I can see new installations of Starlink will no longer work on a boat. The Mini, Standard and Extreme dishes are no longer "actuated" which means they won't re-orient themselves as the boat swings at anchor or gently rocks at sea. Instead you are supposed to use your mobile phone and manually align the dish. I hope I am wrong but it seems that you need to buy a Gen2 dish second hand to get actuation.

Please tell me I am reading this wrongly.

Same as Bergie - I actually cut out the pole and motors on my V3 dishy & Sikflexed it flat on my solar arch. It works just fine, though can take 30 minutes to connect when going hard to windward. Doesn't drop out once connected, even leaping off waves etc - I am quite impressed

 

[Sea Change]

I don't think Bezos is using Chinese satellites. With Amazon Kuiper satellites already entering orbit and Amazon having some interesting patents in phased array antennas, we're in for a price war in the near future.

It's not Kuiper to which I'm referring, it's the Chinese owned and operated constellation. They've launched one batch of satellites so far.

 

[Seven Spades]

Same as Bergie - I actually cut out the pole and motors on my V3 dishy & Sikflexed it flat on my solar arch. It works just fine, though can take 30 minutes to connect when going hard to windward. Doesn't drop out once connected, even leaping off waves etc - I am quite impressed

That's great news. I suspect that the standard will be better than the mini at acquiring and retaining signal.