Starlink Gen 3 pipe adapter is horrible. Here's how mine got fixed.

I became a Starlink beta tester in January 2021. While this Space X satellite internet system was buggy in the beginning, it's gotten increasingly reliable. And the download/upload speeds are better also. At least, they are here in western Oregon.

However, the pipe adapter that Starlink is selling to attach the Gen 3 (third generation) dish to a variety of mounts -- I'm using the Ridgeline Mount for my Gen 3 dish -- is, to put it bluntly, a piece of crap. It's hard to believe that Starlink let this poorly designed piece of equipment that replaces the fold-out legs that come with the Gen 3 dish ever be sold to customers.

I got the Gen 3 rectangular dish even though our Gen 1 round dish was working fine. But the Gen 1 dish has a fixed cable that can't be replaced, and I figured that after more than three years of constant use, it was going to fail at some point. So I left the Gen 1 dish up on our roof as a backup for the Gen 3 dish.

I'm not hugely mechanical. However, as soon as I got the Gen 3 pipe adapter from Starlink, I knew it was going to be a problem.

My Gen 1 dish came with an attached pipe that clicked neatly into the Ridgeline Mount (one with the red bricks for ballast in the photo above). The dish has been immovable through three years of Oregon storms.

Since the Gen 3 pipe adapter was so flimsy, with just a set screw holding the dish to a pipe, I contacted a friend, Frank, who is a blacksmith and skilled metal worker. He made me a short pipe with a "telescope" feature in an attempt to mitigate the pipe adapter's shortcomings. See: "A blacksmith made this for me to fit in screwy Starlink Gen 3 pipe adapter."

This is how the pipe turned out.

A short pipe with a notch on the bottom that would fit over a plastic bulge in the Ridgeline Mount to prevent the pipe from rotating in strong wind, and a larger top that would fit nicely in the Gen3 pipe adapter. This photo taken from above shows how Frank welded two pieces of larger pipe to form the "telescope" feature.

Here's how well the pipe fits into the pipe adapter, which is on the back of the Gen3 dish. This allows the set screw to be tight with just a few turns. But you can see that the round receptacle on the pipe adapter into which a pipe goes is very shallow, and the set screw relies solely on friction to hold the dish to the pipe.

That explains why not long after I installed the Gen 3 dish on our roof with the pipe adapter and Ridgeline Mount, one morning I woke up, looked at the Starlink app on my iPhone and saw that the dish now was something like 65 degrees off target, whereas before it was 8 degrees.

Going outside to look at our roof, the reason was obvious. The Gen 3 dish had blown off the pipe and was lying on the roof. Thankfully, it only fell about a foot and was undamaged. Working fine, in fact. I got a ladder out, climbed up on the roof, and reattached the dish to the pipe, tightening the set screw as firmly as my 75 year old hand could do it. 

(I'm in good shape, so it was tight. Of course, it was tight before.)

Well, a few days ago we had some winds gusting to the 40-45 mpg range, or thereabouts. Nowhere near a hurricane, for sure. But the same thing happened: the dish was blown off the pipe again. This time I called Frank for some advice. I'd gotten a comment on one of my blog posts about the Gen 3 pipe adapter that advised using zip ties around the set screw.

That seemed like a good idea. However, Frank had an even better idea.

We went up on the roof and Frank drilled a hole through the outside layer of the two-layer "telescope" feature of the pipe he made for me. After some fiddling and grinding, the set screw fit through the first layer (a short piece of pipe) and butted up against the second layer (another short piece of pipe with smaller diameter).

That way, if wind tried to lift the dish off the pipe, the set screw wouldn't allow it, since the outer layer of the "telescope" feature would keep the pipe in place. Frank used a zip tie around the raised notch on the pipe adapter and the set screw as insurance, to prevent wind from lifting up the side of the dish on the opposite side of the set screw.

As a bonus, the two of us got the Gen 3 dish aligned perfectly. The Starlink isn't showing any problem with where the dish is pointing. (It lacks a motor to align itself, which the Gen 1 and Gen 2 dishes have.)

So far the dish has stayed on the pipe through some decent wind, though not as strong as what blew the dish off twice. And the speed is good: at the moment (10 pm), 302 Mbps down, 30 Mbps up. I'm confident Frank's fix is going to keep the Gen 3 dish secure.

I've complained to Starlink about the crappy Gen 3 pipe adapter. Haven't gotten a response yet. By the way, I have the pipe adapter that was sent after the first version was recalled. Apparently the only change was to the set screw.

Again, I was fortunate because the dish didn't fall very far when it blew off the pipe adapter. Some Starlink customers have their dish high up to avoid obstructions. They'd be advised to have a tether to catch the dish if they're using the Gen 3 pipe adapter. 

As I said in a previous post:

What bothers me is that Starlink leaves it up to purchasers of the Gen3 kit, which is now the standard residential kit, to figure out how to best attach the dish using the poorly designed pipe adapter. I was fortunate to have a blacksmith as a friend. But what does a single woman, say, do? 

Sure, she could go to her local hardware store and get a one inch pipe, hoping that it would be sturdy enough in the pipe adapter to hold the dish in windy/stormy conditions. It just seems to me, though, that Starlink should have made available a pipe similar to the one Frank made for me for customers who want to use the Ridgeline Mount to hold their Gen 3 dish. 

Again, the Gen1 and Gen2 dishes came with an attached pipe. For some reason Starlink decided not to do this with the Gen3 dish. That's fine, but it seems strange that after paying $600 for the Gen3 kit, a customer then has to search for a pipe that fits well in the pipe adapter and Ridgeline Mount.

Comments

[John Horsley]

I'm interested if you could get another made for me. I have the gen3 dish with the weak pipe mount.