Star Link Mini

Donkster

Donkster

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Oct 23, 2017
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Just purchased the star link mini with a 50gb plan, I must say I’m impressed with the ease of use not much bigger than an A4 piece of paper. Thought mentioning it might help someone else on the fence.

Fast connection and great for working almost anywhere.
There bringing out a new lead which reduces the power consumption greatly soon for off grid
 
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I believe the first call from an unmodified 5G Samsung mobile phone via a satellite in low orbit has already taken place. The company AST SpaceMobile put a massive (65 square m) satellite up to get it to work. So it seems 5G from space is on its way but I guess there is some further development required!

I hope this is not another lost opportunity for some one other than Elon Musk who is not very nice!

Maybe we could put a small satellite up and use a 65 square meter phone antenna on top of our van to do the same thing!
 
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Followed this thread with interest. I love my Starlink. Currently using it to post on this thread from a 4G less part of Mid Wales. Over the years I have gone through the full gamut of trying to get remote internet for work. It has been a frustrating and marginally successful journey. And then Starlink came along, not cheap but it just works, fantastic. I am a sad nerd cause I still stand outside and watch the dish align its self. My only worry is that in supporting this system we are further enabling Mr. Musk who is frankly one nervous breakdown short of a Bond Super Villain. Also interesting that every time I type Starlink my spell checker tries to replace it with Stalin, is it trying to tell us something ? But not withstanding the above I am a complete convert, will not give it up.
 
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Shrimp said:
With the Star Link Mini you pay £50 per month for 50gb, or £85 for ?gb.
The bit I looked at seems to say you only get 50gb regardless of whether you pay £50 or £85!
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I pay 50 euro a month for unlimited gb. 50gb would last a day with a heavy gamer in the family! Not worth it for heavy use, work or play.
 
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TerryReis said:
Followed this thread with interest. I love my Starlink. Currently using it to post on this thread from a 4G less part of Mid Wales. Over the years I have gone through the full gamut of trying to get remote internet for work. It has been a frustrating and marginally successful journey. And then Starlink came along, not cheap but it just works, fantastic. I am a sad nerd cause I still stand outside and watch the dish align its self. My only worry is that in supporting this system we are further enabling Mr. Musk who is frankly one nervous breakdown short of a Bond Super Villain. Also interesting that every time I type Starlink my spell checker tries to replace it with Stalin, is it trying to tell us something ? But not withstanding the above I am a complete convert, will not give it up.
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I used to be a big Musk fan. He's a pretty shrewd businessman. But the persona and history he created has grown many cracks. He went off the deep end a few years ago in my opinion. But SpaceX is mostly being run by Shotwell, so it's lost its path less than other Musk companies. I think they are safe for now, but only because NASA relies on them so heavily.

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Also his car company has a dirty little secret. Eleven US states required automakers sell a certain percentage of zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. If they can’t, the automakers have to buy regulatory credits from another automaker that meets those requirements – such as Tesla, which exclusively sells electric cars.

In 2020 these credits amounted to $1.6 billion for Tesla - nearly twice what it received for making and selling electric cars!

This was all canceled when Biden got to power he insisted other companies actually made some electric cars of their own! Competing with Tesla.

Now Musk is desperate to get Trump back so he can revive his regulatory credits and save his car company!

I do hope someone is left to compete with him - after all we will all lose out if he continues to crush all competition!
 
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matbic said:
This was all canceled when Biden got to power he insisted other companies actually made some electric cars of their own! Competing with Tesla.
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Is that the same Joe Biden that announced GM FORD etc at the White house about being the great EV manufacturers even though they didn't make a tiny fraction of what the worlds largest EV maker Tesla did especially in the USA.

But,,,,,surprisingly they did have a very large union presence.

Cmon
 
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matbic said:
I do hope someone is left to compete with him - after all we will all lose out if he continues to crush all competition!
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Tesla is no longer the definitive market leader. They've been pretty stagnant for a few years now and squandered their lead. And they don't even make the massive profit margins per vehicle anymore.
 
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fred_jb said:
.
I am using this converter:

VOANZO 12 to 48V Step Up Voltage Converter 5A Voltage Regulator for Vehicles Security Systems Medical Equipment Instrumentation https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHYRMPXL?tag=mhf04-21

How you wire it up depends on which model of Starlink we are talking about and depends on what you are trying to achieve.

If it is the Mini and you just want to avoid the need for mains power then you could in theory power it directly from one of these converters, bearing in mind that as far as I know these devices don't contain any surge arrestors or other protection for the dish. You would need to connect the output to a suitable DC socket that would accept the Mini power cable. I believe this has a barrel connector with 5.5mm outside diameter and 2.1mm inside diameter.

With a 48V supply you could easily power the dish via its standard length cable as the mains adapter only outputs 30V and that works fine. With a 48V supply you could possibly use a longer DC cable if you need it. However, bear in mind that if you place the Mini at the end of a very long cable, for example to get a clear view of the sky that will also place the built in wifi router further away, so weakening the signal. That is why I use a separate WiFi router and power the dish over the network cable that this configuration requires.

The other possibility, and likely to be more warranty friendly would be to get the USB connector cable that it is rumoured Starlink will be releasing soon. I am not sure if this will include a suitable 12V to USB C adapter. If not you would need to buy a third party one that conforms to whatever spec Starlink quote, likely to be a high power type meeting the PD fast charger spec. I believe these output a maximum of 20V so you may be limited in what cable length will work. I have seen some YouTube videos where people have had problems trying to use USB power over a long cable.

I hope that helps.
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Thanks for the detail, planning a mini in a couple of months, so this is very helpful.
 
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Donkster said:
After using the Star link mini for a week now I definitely wouldn’t be without it if you’re thinking of buying one just do it 👍🥳
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Have you used any other Starlinks in order to justify the mini as being the best purchase? I think the Gen 2 is pretty good and lots of people suggest the Gen 1 is even better ....

If you're generalising about 'starlinks', then I agree, just do it as Nike say !!
 
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Interesting thread👍🏻

I’m considering Starlink Mini which I want to put on the roof of my MH and just wondering if anyone has had any issues with the strength of the signal from the inbuilt router?
 
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I keep looking at Starlink but never commit. Both the Nighthawk M1 LTE we used and now the Nighthawk M6 LTE have never missed a beat anywhere in the U.K., Ireland or Europe on a £35pm unlimited (no fair use cap) vodafone sim.
 
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Jonno1103 said:
I keep looking at Starlink but never commit. Both the Nighthawk M1 LTE we used and now the Nighthawk M6 LTE have never missed a beat anywhere in the U.K., Ireland or Europe on a £35pm unlimited (no fair use cap) vodafone sim.
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Great routers. Can you link me to the £35 unlimited VF (Europe wide) data SIM please?

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Yes I would like to know how you have got arround Vodafones fair use policy. On their web site it states: “All our pay monthly plans are subject to a 25GB roaming fair use policy.”

If you have got around this please let us know how, because I do find their speeds very good when in France.
 
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matbic said:
If you have got around this please let us know how, because I do find their speeds very good when in France.
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I found their speed was very good throughout Europe. I used them in my phone for many years and got fantastic coverage in 2019 when we toured for 6 months. However, it seems to have deteriorated a lot in the past couple of years. I'd frequently have to manually switch roaming networks to get any data. The EE and Smarty SIMs in my van router didn't seem to suffer anywhere near as much.
 
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Guigsy said:
I found their speed was very good throughout Europe. I used them in my phone for many years and got fantastic coverage in 2019 when we toured for 6 months. However, it seems to have deteriorated a lot in the past couple of years. I'd frequently have to manually switch roaming networks to get any data. The EE and Smarty SIMs in my van router didn't seem to suffer anywhere near as much.
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What you’re experiencing is not network coverage per se, it’s traffic shaping and deprioritising. As an IN roamer from a third country, we ain’t part of the club anymore, so don’t get the same algorithms applied to our usage.

Further phone data SIM usage is compared with mobile data plans usage. The networks you are roaming with know this and shape your usage accordingly to prioritise their customers and those of their EU partners.

All this leads to a much poorer performance in recent years now the European operators have got their act together.
 
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Carpmart said:
What you’re experiencing is not network coverage per se, it’s traffic shaping and deprioritising. As an IN roamer from a third country, we ain’t part of the club anymore, so don’t get the same algorithms applied to our usage.

Further phone data SIM usage is compared with mobile data plans usage. The networks you are roaming with know this and shape your usage accordingly to prioritise their customers and those of their EU partners.

All this leads to a much poorer performance in recent years now the European operators have got their act together.
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I get that. I'm wondering if Vodafone don't have such good partnering deals as they used to. So they aren't getting as high priority as other UK roaming traffic... not that any of them are as good as they used to be.

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We have found mobile roaming in Europe on our phones generally fine for stuff like emails and WhatsApps while out and about in well populated areas, but often poor on signal strength and connection speed when parked up on campsites and elsewhere, so a pain when trying to stream stuff. That is why I have given in to the attractions of Starlink and am paying my tax to Musk, or the Space Karen as some call him!
 
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matbic said:
Also his car company has a dirty little secret. Eleven US states required automakers sell a certain percentage of zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. If they can’t, the automakers have to buy regulatory credits from another automaker that meets those requirements – such as Tesla, which exclusively sells electric cars.

In 2020 these credits amounted to $1.6 billion for Tesla - nearly twice what it received for making and selling electric cars!

This was all canceled when Biden got to power he insisted other companies actually made some electric cars of their own! Competing with Tesla.

Now Musk is desperate to get Trump back so he can revive his regulatory credits and save his car company!

I do hope someone is left to compete with him - after all we will all lose out if he continues to crush all competition!
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Wrong on so many levels I am afraid.
1st it is not a dirty little secret it is on the front page of their financials pretty much every quarter. It is not done by 11 US states it is done at the federal level. If it was a state thing then Biden couldn't have cancelled.
But it has not in fact been cancelled by Biden, Look at their latest P & L and you will see regulatory credits increased in the last quarter. You can check out regulatory credits yourself if you don't believe me. Page 23.

Musk is not desperate for Trump to get back in. He has only recently switched support from the Dems to the Republicans, he has historically been a Democrat. He even stayed democrat when Biden invited all the US car manufacturers except Tesla and then gave GM the credit for starting the EV revolution and being leaders. Majorly insulting and plain wrong. But he stuck with them. Musk and Trump had a bit of a fued going for a while, so this change of tune was surprising to some of us who follow them. Musk was even supporting Trumps competition for the Republican nominee Ron DeSantis. Not a good way to gain the support of Trump you would expect.

His car company is in no risk of imminent collapse so does not need saving.

He is not crushing the competition. The competition just didn't turn up to play. That is changing now. The Chinese and South Koreans are going great guns. It is only the Yanks and the European companies who can't compete currently.

It is ok to dislike someone and what they do. But to repeat lies like this to bash them undermines your position.

Musk has become a bit of a pratt over the last year or two. He should stay out of politics and stick to engineering and serious technical challenges. He excels at those. I understand his position on twitter and to be fair he has a very good point.
BUT, his brain farts on international politics are just unhelpful and are killing his reputation and the patience of a lot of his supporters.
 
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I have had another go at trying to find a definitive answer on in motion data with the Starlink Mini, and it seems to be the opposite to what I first thought, in that it is allowed above 10 mph on the Mini Roam 50 GB data limited plan, but not allowed if you have your Mini on the more expensive unlimited Regional Roam plan. It seems that 10 mph motion is the cut off point below which all the plans allow use.

I guess that makes sense as with the limited 50 GB plan Starlink aren't likely to see a great increase in data usage due to allowing in motion use, whereas it could be significant if allowed on the unlimited plans.

Not too bothered personally as I don't have a great need for data while travelling, though I have occasionally had issues with Google maps via Android Auto due to poor or non-existent mobile signal. I guess it would be good for that but I can also use the MyRoute Navigation app via Android Auto and that has a full set of downloaded maps so can be used offline.
 
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Carpmart said:
Great routers. Can you link me to the £35 unlimited VF (Europe wide) data SIM please?
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Nope as it's carried over from a long term contract I've had with them since around 2001 when I worked in their MTX transmission sites. Had the same for One2One then T Mobile too as I worked for them until their sites went dark.

I think now their unlimited data for roaming through Europe is capped at 25GB pm, dunno you'll need to check but I beleive it's one of the more generous packages. With Max you don't have the speed cap either. For UK & Ireland their Unlimited Max, the modern equivalent, is just that, unlimited with no restriction on download speeds.

I'm keeping up to date with what Starlink are offering as the missus is taking early retirement this year meaning we'll spend more time on the roads of Europe. We're both heavy users modern media is switching more & more to online services so data needs will rapidly grow and one day someone at VF Towers will notice what I still have & clobber me...
 
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I think about the best you will get on EU roaming allowances these days for UK based contracts is about 30GB. We are on iD mobile with monthly renewable plans and the roaming allowances are either the same as your UK allowance, if this is less than 30GB, or a maximum of 30GB irrespective of whether you have a greater allowance in the UK. We changed from Smarty because they only allowed 12GB when roaming. The iD network is part of Currys, and runs on the 3 network in the UK. Not so crucial now as we have Starlink, but while using mobile data we have no issues in the UK, and had just the usual problems in Europe with limited coverage and signal strength in the more rural areas.

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fred_jb said:
I think about the best you will get on EU roaming allowances these days for UK based contracts is about 30GB. We are on iD mobile with monthly renewable plans and the roaming allowances are either the same as your UK allowance, if this is less than 30GB, or a maximum of 30GB irrespective of whether you have a greater allowance in the UK. We changed from Smarty because they only allowed 12GB when roaming. The iD network is part of Currys, and runs on the 3 network in the UK. Not so crucial now as we have Starlink, but while using mobile data we have no issues in the UK, and had just the usual problems in Europe with limited coverage and signal strength in the more rural areas.
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FYI up to our full 100Gb per month for a continuous 9 month period on Popit was no problem for us in ‘23 and ‘24! Just started another 9 months away and both phones work really well on 4G and 5G Popit SIM’s whilst roaming.
 
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Carpmart said:
FYI up to our full 100Gb per month for a continuous 9 month period on Popit was no problem for us in ‘23 and ‘24! Just started another 9 months away and both phones work really well on 4G and 5G Popit SIM’s whilst roaming.
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Interesting, though looking at the prices this is not of interest to me. I only pay £7 per month for my 30GB iD plan and £9 per month for a 63Gb plan, both of which give me 30Gb of roaming. The equivalent on Popit seems to be £18 per month for 30GB, with the 100GB plan costing £25. Just corrected figures again after checking in app!
 
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Carpmart said:
FYI up to our full 100Gb per month for a continuous 9 month period on Popit was no problem for us in ‘23 and ‘24! Just started another 9 months away and both phones work really well on 4G and 5G Popit SIM’s whilst roaming.
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Another vote for Popit, excellent and helpful customer services who respond quicker than most using their online chat.
 
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Regarding Musk/Spacex/Starlink/Direct to Cell in 2025, let this rambling wash over you from 3 mins in:



I'm a geek, but rarely an early adopter, just because I know what's coming next and choose to wait. So, my current mobile solution is the same as it's been for a few years now, a decent modern mobile phone either in my hand, on the motorhome roof in a plastic box with red cord back down the skylight, or in extremis, 9m up a roach pole providing a wifi hotspot to our tablets (that simple solution is VERY effective). I will replace it with Starlink if the UK capital and running costs reduce significantly, otherwise I'll wait for Musk's Direct to Cell in 2025, when it will be time to update my 2021 Samsung Galaxy 21 anyway.

Dave
 
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For data use, what's the benefit of "direct to cell" over his current dish technology?
Is it that technology will put a satellite receiver in your phone?
If I understand correctly [unlikely], isn't Starlink reliant on ground stations to physically connect into the internet infrastructure?
And if so, those will be subject to national government whims.
And, rather like BT, the government chose to tell/instruct/force BT to open up it's exchanges & infrastructure to competitors... might not similar happen, eventually, to Starlink?

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fred_jb said:
Interesting, though looking at the prices this is not of interest to me. I only pay £7 per month for my 30GB iD plan and £9 per month for a 63Gb plan, both of which give me 30Gb of roaming. The equivalent on Popit seems to be £18 per month for 30GB, with the 100GB plan costing £25. Just corrected figures again after checking in app!
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If cost is the primary driver, then yes, there are cheaper options which don’t work as well and may be capped… worth ‘ponying up’ IMHO as it’s a MVNO setup specifically for roaming offers.. ✔️

Your original point Fred was that there aren’t any UK based services which offer >30gb before capping, hence my post as there are! 🤪
 
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