HinesSight

Be sure your Starlink power supply matches what your dish needs

I've been a user of the Starlink satellite internet system since January 2021, when I became a beta tester.  I've learned a lot about Starlink over the years, but there's always more to know. 

My message in this post is simple: if you're having a problem with your Starlink, be sure that the power supply is properly matched with your dish. I discovered this the hard way recently.

It all started when I came home in the late afternoon and found that our Starlink broadband had gone offline. Usually restarting the router solves the problem.

That didn't work. I tried other suggestions on the Starlink app on my iPhone, which I could only access with our dreadfully slow cellular connection, just 1-3 Mbps at best. We have a Verizon range extender, but it requires an internet connection. 

I reset the router to factory settings. Didn't work. I switched the router with another Starlink router I'd installed downstairs to form a mesh network for better coverage. Didn't work. Sometimes the router would connect with the dish on our roof, but almost instantly the connection would be lost. That told me the problem likely was with the router, not the dish. 

I'd put in a support request with Starlink, but aside from what looked like a canned response based on the key words in my request, I couldn't contact a real human being. Starlink is a technical marvel but its support can be lacking, as it can take days to get a response. That night I decided to order a new Starlink router from Amazon. The delivery was to be the next day between 5-10 pm.

As soon as 5 pm arrived I started opening the front door frequently to see if the new router had arrived from Amazon. At 7:30, it had. I ripped open the box and replaced the old router with the new one, then waited for the good news.

Sadly, there was bad news.

A red light appeared after several minutes, a sign that the router couldn't connect with the dish on our roof, which happens via a cable. I reset the router. The same thing happened. Now my frustration was really extreme. I'd been convinced that the problem was with the router, not the dish. If the dish needed to be replaced, that was going to be more expensive and take more time.

Still, I started to look at how quickly I could get a new dish, either from Starlink or a local reseller. Staring  at the list of things to purchase on the Starlink web site, I noticed that a DC-DC power supply looked like the AC power supply of our current third generation dish, which is considerably smaller than the power supply that came with the new router I'd just bought. (Starlink used to have a separate power supply for the dish and router; now the dish gets its power from the router.)

That led me to what turned out to be a great idea: use the old power supply with the new router. When I did that, bingo! Almost an instant connection. I'd been correct that the old router was the problem. But I'd assumed that I should use the power supply that came with the new router, which apparently didn't have enough oomph (technical electrical term) to power our dish.

This is the Starlink router that I got from Amazon. 

This is the power supply that came with the router. The output is 30.0V.

This is the power supply that came with the Gen3 dish. The output is 57V. As noted above, I figured that I should use the power supply that came with the new router. After all, the Amazon listing said that the router was compatible with the Gen3 dish. Which it was. But the power supply that came with the router wasn't. At least, not for our Gen3/Version 4 rectangular kickstand dish. 

The day after I got our Starlink working again, I heard from someone at Starlink support that they'd concluded that our router had a hardware problem, and that they'd send me a new router. Of course, I'd already gotten a new router from Amazon, but I was grateful for the Starlink router that arrived in a few days, as now it could be a backup.

There wasn't a power supply in the box that came from Starlink support. Today I tried to order the 57.0V output power supply (UTP-232C) as a backup, but it wasn't available to order. Apparently the only way to be able to buy one is to put in a support ticket, which I've done.

It seems strange that the current router for the standard dish comes with a smaller power supply that, for our dish at least, wasn't strong enough to power both the router and dish. I'm not sure why. I got one of the first Gen3 dishes. Maybe it had a larger power requirement than dishes manufactured later. But this is just a guess.

Anyway, the lesson is that if you're unable to get a new router to connect with your standard Starlink dish, be sure that you're using the correct power supply -- which may not be the power supply that comes with the router.

Broadband is coming to Oregon's unserved areas, but slowly

A few days ago I decided to see whether there was anything new being reported by the Oregon Broadband Office, a state agency charged with overseeing projects to bring decently fast broadband to people in this state who lack it.

That includes my neighborhood in rural south Salem. Though we're only six miles or so from the Salem city limits, Oregon's capital, the only wired/fixed broadband (as contrasted with cellular broadband) available out here is crappy CenturyLink DSL that comes over ancient copper phone lines at the sluggish speed of 6-7 Mbps down and 1-2 Mbps up.

This is a far cry from the minimal broadband standard of 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. And until I was able to bring DSL to our area in 2008 by writing a plaintive letter to the CEO of Qwest, the predecessor to CenturyLink, we had to use a glitchy satellite service, WildBlue, while neighbors of ours had to make do with dial-up.

Currently my wife and I enjoy Space X's Starlink broadband, which we've had since January 2021, when I became a Starlink beta tester. Since, Starlink has become much faster and more reliable as many more satellites are launched into low orbit. That's great, but I'd much rather have fiber optic broadband -- which is considerably better than Starlink's $120/month service. (Starlink speeds vary quite a bit; at the moment I'm getting 123 Mbps down and 17 Mbps up.)

I noticed a November 12, 2024 press release on the Oregon Broadband Office web site about $133 million being awarded to broadband projects in Oregon. Marion County, where I live, was to get $8,356,701 for 1,007 locations. That got me excited, until I checked out a map of the projects and saw that Ziply Fiber would be installing fiber optic on the east side of I-5 near us, while our neighborhood is a few miles west of I-5.

So close, yet so far. That spurred me to send a message to the Oregon Broadband Office:

I contacted your office before, wondering when our woefully broadband underserved area of several hundred homes out here in rural south Salem would benefit from the federal programs to expand broadband access.

From what I can tell after just looking at your site, Ziply Fiber has a contract nearby, on the east side of I-5, while we’re several miles from that area on the west side of I-5. So it looks like even though most of our neighbors suffer with 6-7 Mbps DSL from CenturyLink, the only option widely available other than Starlink, which we have and pay $120 a month for, there’s no plan for our neighborhood to get faster and cheaper broadband.

Please let me know if my gloomy assessment of the situation is correct. As I told one of your staff before, I’ve looked into every conceivable broadband option, including cellular broadband, and have come up with exactly zero options to DSL other than satellite internet, which I have.

I’ve noted that Starlink wasn’t eligible for federal grants to improve broadband access because the service was too expensive and too slow. So it’s frustrating that aside from crappy DSL, the only option I and many other neighbors have is Starlink and HughesNet, two satellite services that don’t qualify under federal rules as viable broadband. 

How long are we supposed to wait for “real” broadband? I’m 76, so I'm suspecting I’ll be dead before that happens in our neighborhood, though I’d enjoy getting some positive news from your office.

I got a quick reply from a staffer who I'd talked with before, Brian McGuirk. We set up a time to talk by phone last Tuesday. Once again, McGuirk was helpful, friendly, and informative. He told me that the $133 million was from the 2021 ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act).

So it's taken more than three years for that money to be allocated to broadband projects in Oregon. Given how the federal bureaucracy works, I suppose this is reasonable. McGuirk said that a much larger pot of broadband money is coming from the 2021 Infrastructure and Jobs Act, which contains $65 billion nationally for broadband. 

I found a June 14, 2024 story from our local newspaper, the Statesman Journal, "Oregon's 'Internet for All' application approved." 

Nearly a year after announcing Oregon would receive $688 million for the improvement and expansion of affordable, high-speed internet, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said Thursday that the state can now request access to funding to begin administering the program.

A pre-pandemic study estimated 1.7 million Oregonians live in rural areas without access to high-speed broadband.

Nick Batz, director of the Oregon Broadband Office, said while the state generally has good connectivity, establishing access in those under or unserved areas is challenging.

The story said that the program is expected to be implemented over the next four years and completed by 2028. Well, I'll be 80 then. So maybe I'll live to see fiber optic at our house. Until then, I'm thankful for Starlink, which has made our broadband life much happier after we were able to ditch archaic DSL.

McGuirk told me about an area in rural Washingon County that is in the same DSL situation as our neighborhood is. After a bit of Googling, I came up with a 2020 story, "Is fiber coming to rural western Washington County? Perhaps, says Ziply." But that area still doesn't have fiber.

The rural portions of Washington County have always struggled to gain access to high speed internet, with some regions solely relying on satellite or microwave options, while others are on copper lines now owned by Ziply Fiber, which acquired the former network of the struggling Frontier Communications operation in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana on May 1 of this year.

...The Frontier network for rural residents in far western Washington County has been a constant source of frustration for years, with technical issues plaguing the aging network and often poor customer service being a hallmark of their legacy. With the acquisition of the network by Ziply, a new company, is there a future in western Washington County where internet connectivity comes in the way of fiber instead of copper? Perhaps, says the company. 

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.

I like my Starlink Gen 3 dish (even though it fell off the pipe adapter)

Here's a report on my installation of the Starlink Gen 3 dish, which I bought so our Gen 1 dish could serve as a backup. First, some background.

This is how I started off a post about needing to have a blacksmith make me a pipe to fit in the poorly designed pipe adapter for the Gen 3 dish. I called the post, "A blacksmith made this for me to fit in screwy Starlink Gen 3 pipe adapter."

I've been a happy Starlink customer since January 2021, when I reported on the installation of the first generation round dish that I was chosen to be a public beta tester for. I described my tale in "Our Starlink is working well on its Ridgeline Roof Mount."

Since, that Gen1 dish has worked flawlessly, though Starlink has had its reliability ups and downs, with recent experience being much more on the upside, probably due to the much larger number of Starlink satellites in orbit now.

But nothing lasts forever, and my wife and I are heavily dependent on the much faster broadband we enjoy with Starlink compared to the crappy 6-7 Mbps CenturyLink DSL brought to us via the non-cutting edge technology of copper phone wires.

So when Starlink sent me an email last year saying that as a beta customer I could purchase the new third generation dish, getting several months of service free if I bought it now, I decided to buy the Gen3 kit.

My plan was to use the Gen3 dish, router, and power supply, leaving the deactivated Gen1 dish up on our roof as backup if something went wrong with the Gen3 kit and we had to wait a while before replacement equipment could arrive.

I ordered the new version of the Ridgeline Mount, as I wanted to put the Gen3 dish next to the Gen1 dish.

Here's a photo of the rectangular Gen 3 dish on our roof nestled next to the round Gen 1 dish. The Ridgeline Mount now has a different design. And you don't have to supply your own weights (I used bricks for the Gen 1 mount). The gray weights are supplied by Starlink.


This photo shows the angle of the Gen 3 dish. It doesn't have a motor like the Gen 1 and Gen 2 dishes. I gather that the fixed angle works because there are many more Starlink satellites up now.

The installation went quite smoothly. The 50 foot cable that comes with the Gen 3 kit looks like it will be able to follow the path of the 75 foot cable that the Gen 3 dish came with. I got a 150 foot cable just in case it didn't.

Pleasingly, both cables fit through the hole in the side of the house leading to our living room, where the router and power supply are. (The Gen 1 cable is permanently attached to the dish, so I had to leave it up, which is fine, since like I said, the Gen 1 dish will be a backup in case of problems with the Gen 3 dish.)

It was a bit of a pain to have to get back on the roof when the Starlink app told me the dish needed adjusting. That's the downside of not having a motor that turns the dish.

I believe the app said that the dish was 16 degrees off. I took my iPhone up on the roof and fiddled with the Gen 3 dish. It was kind of frustrating to rotate the dish, check the app to see if it was aligned correctly, then see that Starlink wanted it rotated back the other way.

The best I could do was get the dish just 8 degrees off. One reason is that I had to loosen the set screw on the pipe adapter, then turn the dish with one hand while looking at the Starlink app that I was holding in my other hand. The download speeds seem higher than the Gen 3 dish was giving us, so I'm not going to worry about the dish not being in the precisely correct position.

(The speeds vary a lot. Usually they're between 75 Mbps and 200 Mbps.)

A bigger aggravation was the dish falling off the pipe adapter when the wind was just 40 mph or so, maybe higher with gusts. That isn't exactly a hurricane. As noted in my post about the pipe adapter, the set screw just relies on friction to hold the dish to the pipe adapter. I thought I had the screw firmly tightened. Here's a photo.

But one morning the Starlink app said that the dish was 36 degrees off. Figures, since the dish was lying on the roof. We'd had about 40 mph winds the night before, maybe a bit higher with gusts. Not a hurricane, though.

You can see that there's not much room for a pipe to fit into the adapter. I was fortunate that the dish only fell a foot or so, landing on the back side. (We still had a decent internet connection even while the dish was lying on the sloping roof.) Some Starlink owners have to put their dish on a tall pipe/pole to get above obstructions. In that case, the dish falling off would be a bigger deal.

I can't understand why Starlink is shipping the Gen 3 dish with such a messed-up way of attaching it to a pipe. This is a photo from my previous post about having a blacksmith make a pipe that fit as snugly as possible into the adapter. Without the "telescope" feature welded on to the end of the pipe, which couldn't be any larger and still fit into the Ridgeline Mount, the set screw would have needed to be screwed in much further, with more ability for the pipe to loosen in a high wind.

Hopefully the dish won't fall off again. I've tightened the screw as much as I could.

A blacksmith made this for me to fit in screwy Starlink Gen3 pipe adapter

I've been a happy Starlink customer since January 2021, when I reported on the installation of the first generation round dish that I was chosen to be a public beta tester for. I described my tale in "Our Starlink is working well on its Ridgeline Roof Mount."

Since, that Gen1 dish has worked flawlessly, though Starlink has had its reliability ups and downs, with recent experience being much more on the upside, probably due to the much larger number of Starlink satellites in orbit now.

But nothing lasts forever, and my wife and I are heavily dependent on the much faster broadband we enjoy with Starlink compared to the crappy 6-7 Mbps CenturyLink DSL brought to us via the non-cutting edge technology of copper phone wires.

So when Starlink sent me an email last year saying that as a beta customer I could purchase the new third generation dish, getting several months of service free if I bought it now, I decided to buy the Gen3 kit.

My plan was to use the Gen3 dish, router, and power supply, leaving the deactivated Gen1 dish up on our roof as backup if something went wrong with the Gen3 kit and we had to wait a while before replacement equipment could arrive.

I ordered the new version of the Ridgeline Mount, as I wanted to put the Gen3 dish next to the Gen1 dish.

Our roof has a mostly unobstructed view of the northern sky, with just a few tall fir trees and oaks in the way. For quite a while Starlink hasn't reported any obstructions, again probably because of the increased number of satellites in the sky. 

Only problem was, the Gen3 dish doesn't come with an attached short pipe, as the Gen1 and Gen2 dishes did. So I ordered a pipe adapter that replaces the flipout legs that come with the Gen3 dish, legs that obviously would be useless for placing the dish on the ridge of our roof.

When the pipe adapter arrived, before the Gen3 kit did, I was hugely unimpressed.

It was very shallow with just a set screw to hold the pipe in place. The pipe adapter seemed sufficient for a 10-12 inch pipe that would fit in the new Ridgeline Mount, but I sure wouldn't trust it if the dish was twenty feet or more  in the air, as some Starlink owners have to do to get a clear view of the sky. 

Further, the Ridgeline Mount could only hold a pipe a bit over an inch in diameter at most, while the pipe adapter could hold a pipe about two inches in diameter. That meant the set screw would have to be tightened almost all the way to hold a one inch pipe.

My brilliant move was to call a neighbor who is much more mechanical than I am, and a blacksmith to boot. Frank came to our house and took a look at the pipe adapter. He agreed that it would be much better to fashion a pipe that had a "telescope" large end to fit in the pipe adapter, with the rest of it being able to fit into the Ridgeline Mount.

I had to wait for Starlink to send a replacement Gen3 pipe adapter after the original one was recalled. I was hoping that a major redesign would have been made for the screwy pipe adapter, but apparently all that was changed was the set screw. And even that seemed the same to me. 

Anyway, I finally was able to take the Ridgeline Mount and pipe adapter up to Frank's shop so he could do his thing. It could Frank about a hour of measuring, cutting, and welding, but the end result was just what I needed.

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.

I was able to successfully install the Gen3 dish today. It seems firmly in place. I'll report on how the installation went in another blog post, as I wanted to focus on the pipe needed to fit into the pipe adapter here.

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.

Starlink couldn't recognize my Gen 3 Starlink router. Here's the fix.

Last August Starlink, the SpaceX satellite internet service, sent me an email saying that because I was an early beta customer, I was entitled to send them $200 for a third-generation router that offered better features than our first-generation router.

I accepted that offer. After an initial installation glitch caused by sometimes glitchy me, I ended up liking the Gen 3 router more than the first generation router that came with our round dish. 

Recently, though, I encountered a bit of weirdness associated with the Gen 3 router. Maybe this was unique to our setup, but in case someone else has this problem, I thought I'd describe it along with the easy fix.

I discovered the problem after the Mobile Link app associated with the Generac whole house generator that we'd gotten for our rural south Salem home this year let me know that the wi-fi connection with the generator had stopped working.

The app had easy to follow instructions for restoring the connection. All I needed were the keys to the locking lid, my iPhone, and the wi-fi password.

Hey, no problem, I thought, heading out to the Generac. But after I tried and failed three times to get the generator hooked up again with Starlink wi-fi, which had a decent but fairly weak signal at the Generac location, I knew a call to Generac support was in my future.

The wi-fi specialist I ended up talking with said that he'd work me through a semi-secret technique that he thought should be in the Generac manual, but wasn't. It was fairly complicated, involving using Safari and what I assume was the generator's IP address to attempt a Starlink wi-fi connection.

That didn't work either. He then told me to contact Starlink and ask for them to split off a dedicated 2.4 G network by itself, as from past experience with other Generac customers he'd learned that the default mixed 2.4 and 5 wi-fi didn't play well with a Generac, which is designed for a 2.4 G connection.

I put in a Starlink support ticket, as requested. The response I got was to open up the Starlink app, go to settings, click on the Starlink network, and activate "Split 2.4 / 5 GHz Networks." Problem was, I got this error message.

Well, it seemed strange that Starlink didn't recognize the Gen 3 router that I'd bought from Starlink. And I couldn't reboot the router because even though I'd been using the router for several months with no problems, the lack of recognition meant rebooting wasn't an option.

So I reopened the support ticket, explaining this problem. This was the response I got.

I wasn't wild about trying the "if this does not work" option, since it sounded more complicated and scary that the first option of deleting the Starlink app and reinstalling it with my log-in credentials. 

Which, thankfully, solved the problem. I was able to click on the split 2.4 and 5 networks button, which created a new wi-fi network that I cleverly called Starlink 2.4 G. When I headed out to the generator this afternoon, the wi-fi set-up process went smoothly after I selected Starlink 2.4 G as the wi-fi network to use. 

The Mobile Link app is showing only a 32% wi-fi signal strength, but that seems to be sufficient to keep the Generac happy.

As a bonus, I discovered that the Ting device our insurance company sent us for free that plugs into an electrical outlet and monitors the safety of our house's electrical system is back to working now after it also lost the 5 G wi-fi connection, and I reinstalled the Ting with a 2.4 G connection.

Five miles from Salem city limits, our neighborhood is unserved by broadband

Our neighborhood, Spring Lake Estates, is only about five miles from the city limits of Salem, Oregon's capital. So it isn't like we're in Outer Mongolia -- though when it comes to broadband access, we might as well be.

For one of the things I learned by my phone conversation with a guy from the Oregon Broadband Office today, is that our neighborhood is unserved by broadband according to the federal definition: 

An unserved location is defined as a broadband-serviceable location that the Broadband DATA Maps show as (a) having no access to broadband service, or (b) lacking access to Reliable Broadband Service offered with - (i) a speed of not less than 25 Mbps for downloads; and (ii) a speed of not less than 3 Mbps for uploads; and (iii) latency less than or equal to 100 milliseconds (NOFO Section I.C.dd).

We definitely qualify as unserved, since the only non-cellular, non-satellite option our neighborhood has is crappy CenturyLink DSL, which at our house offered dismal speeds of 6-7 Mbps download and 1-2 Mbps upload.

Until Starlink came to our rescue when I was chosen to be a beta tester for this SpaceX satellite internet service. Currently it costs $120 a month for speeds that vary. At the moment I'm getting 104 Mbps download and 18 Mbps upload.

The Oregon Broadband Office guy I spoke with after I emailed that office with questions about their grant program for improving broadband in our state said that he has CenturyLink in Portland, I believe, and pays $30 a month for 200 Mbps download speed.

(He'll go nameless in this blog post, since I didn't take notes on our conversation, so don't want to run the risk of saying something that doesn't completely match what he told me. Which doesn't include the definition of "unserved" because I could check that out with some Googling.)

I was told that satellite internet isn't part of unserved and underserved broadband locations since it's available everywhere, for a steep price. And cellular broadband typically doesn't qualify since often the speed isn't reliably above 25 Mbps download.

It was a pleasant conversation for me because it gave me a chance to vent about our neighborhood's broadband woes. I told the guy that while I'm not religious, our talk sort of felt like my brief experience as a childhood Catholic when I'd go to confession. Except in this case I was complaining more than confessing.

For our neighborhood only had dial-up internet until late 2007, when I managed to bring DSL to our area by writing a pleading letter to the CEO of Qwest, which later became CenturyLink. I talked about that success in I'm the DSL King of the World!

This occurred after a Qwest broadband manager told me that even though our neighborhood was just a few miles from Bunker Hill Road, where DSL existed, Qwest would never bring DSL to our area because it would cost too much.

Then after the manager heard from the Qwest CEO, I got a phone call from him saying that, lo and behold, we'd be getting DSL. Now, I told the Oregon Broadband Office guy, I heard from the Marion County broadband coordinator a few years ago that CenturyLink is saying the same thing about bringing fiber optic broadband service to our area of about 150 homes. It'll never happen. 

The (possible) good news is that thanks to grants from both the Trump and Biden administrations, Oregon will be getting quite a bit of money to bring broadband to unserved locations like ours. I was told that $100 million from the previous administration is arriving soon, with more to come.

I was told that companies which receive contracts to expand broadband access are expected to contribute some of their own money to the project. Which is fair, because they will be the ones getting the monthly subscription fees after broadband comes to an area.

I'm hoping this will happen sooner rather than later for our neighborhood. Starlink works well for us, but it's expensive. I'd love to have fiber optic service rather than satellite internet. What's frustrating is how poorly the free market works when no broadband providers are willing to service an area like ours.

Fast reliable broadband isn't a luxury. It's a necessity. For work, for education, for entertainment, for keeping in touch with the world. 

Fairly soon, I suspect, it will be a necessity for television watching in rural area lacking cable when DirecTV and Dish go under, though they could stagger on for a while longer by merging, since they're losing customers rapidly.

With no satellite television, streaming via broadband will be the only option for many rural residents.

If you need rural cellular internet, I recommend MobileData2Go

Recently I spent a lot of time checking out providers of rural cellular internet, which basically set you up with a router and plan that accesses the internet via one of the major companies: Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T.

If someone lives in a city, they probably have many internet/broadband choices. People like me who live in a rural area with poor cell service, don't. Out here in rural south Salem, Oregon, my wife and I suffered with 6-7 Mbps CenturyLink DSL over ancient copper phone lines because that was our only option.

Then I was selected to be a beta tester for Starlink satellite internet, and our broadband life changed markedly. We were thrilled to have shows on Netflix not buffer constantly, and be in sharp focus. 

However, it's an open secret that Starlink customer service can be slow. There's no way to talk to anyone in person. It all happens through support tickets. So even though our Starlink equipment has been trouble-free so far, I wanted a viable backup to Starlink in case we had to wait weeks for replacement equipment to arrive if something broke.

That led me to Googling rural cellular internet companies after my daughter visited and I noted that her AT&T iPhone was getting a 5G signal. My hope was that I could find a reasonably priced plan that used AT&T (Verizon and T-Mobile are very slow at our house) so we could still have decent broadband if, or likely when, our Starlink system stopped working.

The clear winner in my search was MobileData2Go. Their unlimited plan was the least expensive; they sell a router so you don't have to keep paying for a rental; they have plans for all three major cellular companies; and I found that their customer service was superb.

The only downside to this otherwise happy story was that after several days of tweaking the AT&T router  that I promptly received from MobileData2Go, the signal we were able to receive was too unreliable and slow to make it worth continuing with the service.

This wasn't the fault of MobileData2Go. It simply was because our house is in a low part of the south Salem hills with no direct line of sight to a cell tower. I was hugely impressed with the competence and diligence of the people at MobileData2Go. I know good customer support when I experience it. 

Having contacted several other rural cellular internet companies, my strong advice to anyone interested in their services is Buyer Beware. One of the worst offenders would go nameless if I didn't share the name: HomeFi. 

HomeFi advertises on Facebook, where I learned about them. Luckily, I Googled "HomeFi reviews" and "HomeFi scam." I recommend you do the same, not only for HomeFi, but for any rural cellular internet company you're considering. Here's one of the HomeFi results from ScamPulse. 

I ended up ordering a Mobile Starlink system intended for RV users, even though I'm only going to use it as a residential Starlink backup. Don't know why I didn't think of this before, since a Mobile Starlink account can be paused during the months someone doesn't need it, which will be almost all of the time for us.

So I'm returning the MobileData2Go router. There was zero problem doing this, as this is a reputable company.

One sign of this is that MobileData2Go accepts PayPal in addition to credit cards, and includes a link to where PayPal lets you cancel a recurring payment in their FAQs. That impressed me, since I'd read numerous complaints about MobileData2Go competitors from people who had great difficulty in cancelling their rural cellular internet plan.

After getting Starlink's Gen 3 router, I'm liking it

I've had, and enjoyed, Starlink's satellite internet service since January 2021, when I was approved to be a beta tester and got to put the original round dish on our roof. Not for free, sadly, I had to pay for it.

Recently Starlink emailed me with an offer to purchase their new Gen 3 router that works both with the first generation round dish and the second generation square dish. This time I had to pay $200 for the privilege of being a beta tester.

I decided to get the router because the original router was still in use. It's worked fine, but I figured that the Gen 3 router had to be an improvement. This is part of what the Starlink email said about the router.

The new Gen 3 router introduces WiFi 6 and tri-band radios to Starlink. With improved range, performance, and device support, the Starlink Gen 3 router will extend your WiFi network throughout your home to provide a more consistent and reliable connection with faster speeds.

 

The Gen 3 router can replace your current router, and multiple Gen 3 routers can be meshed together to extend the range of your WiFi network.   

I'd agree with those claims by and large. The Gen 3 router has a minimalist design and fits nicely on the table where the vertically oriented original router looked like it could tip over at any moment.

Installation was easy. Or at least it would have been, if I hadn't inexplicably put the ends of the ethernet cable in the wrong places, even after reading the instructions several times. You can read all about that misadventure in my blog post, "My guide to happiness: act stupid, then undo your stupidity." 

The Gen 3 router seems to start up with a connection considerably faster than the original router. That's a plus, since at times the old one would take forever, more or less, after being plugged in.

I did experience much slower speeds at first with the Gen 3 router. However, after a few days the speeds returned to their normal range of 30-125 Mbps or so depending on the time of day and how the Starlink gods are feeling.

At one point the speed dropped to the dreadful DSL range that my wife and I were stuck with for many years out here in rural south Salem, Oregon, 6-7 Mbps.

I was about to submit a support ticket to Starlink, but after I read the tips to fix a slow connection I decided that I was capable of unplugging and plugging in the router again, which led to a marked speed increase right away.

At the moment, 9:50 pm on a weekday, I'm getting 58 Mbps download and 16 Mbps upload, which is fairly typical. 

The wi-fi signal in the most distant part of our house from the router seems less strong but also faster than the original router. In the early morning I've gotten speeds of over 100 Mbps in that area, which never happened with the first generation router. 

So I'm pleased with the Gen 3 router so far. 

Our Starlink is working well on its Ridgeline Roof Mount

Eight days ago I was happy with the speed of the Starlink satellite internet system that I'd been chosen to be a public beta tester for, but not with the reliability. 

As I said in "My first Starlink beta test: fast but loses satellite connection," it wasn't a surprise that the connection kept dropping, since I had to put the Starlink on its tripod on one of our decks. We live in rural south Salem, Oregon, and our home is surrounded by large oaks and firs.

So I was eager to see how the Starlink did when the Ridgeline Roof Mount I'd ordered arrived, which it did yesterday. 

UPDATE: I've heard from several fellow Beta testers wondering how I was able to order the Ridgeline Roof Mount since it still isn't showing up on the Starlink web site. That was the case when our Starlink arrived, so I put in a support request to Starlink saying I needed the Ridgeline Mount to be able to test the system in a place with a clear view of the sky. I got a response from the support person saying they could order that mount for me, using the credit card they had on file. So give that it a try if you want one. It might work for you also.

Installing the Starlink on our roof was easy. I'd already gone to Lowe's and purchased 16 5-pound red bricks, which were needed to weight the Ridgeline Roof Mount with the required 80 pounds of stability.

Laying a rubber mat on our roofline was easy, as was carrying the Starlink up a ladder in the bag that was included in the Ridgeline Roof Mount kit. The dish popped into the receptacle on the mount with a satisfying click. Then I threw the cable/power cord over the side of the roof, and thence through a sliding glass door into our living room. 

My wife had figured out how to tape some insulation over the crack in the door to keep cold air out. I'd cut a small piece of wood to keep the door from being opened while we tested the Starlink in what hopefully would be its permanent location, after which we could drill a hole for the cable through our siding.

Then came the big moment. Plug in the Starlink, give it some time to find the satellites, wait for the router to come on line, choose "Starlink" for my iPhone's wi-fi network, and see how fast and reliable the Starlink is in its rooftop location. 

Initially the connection dropped a few times, before becoming highly reliable.

We were able to watch an episode of Bridgerton on Netflix with ease, using Starlink wi-fi. It was a joy to see how much crisper the picture was, since our crappy 6 Mbps CenturyLink DSL often forces Netflix to supply us with a fuzzy image, and sometimes no video at all as we wait for buffering to take place.

Eventually we lost the Starlink connection around the time we switch to watching the KGW Portland evening news. When I checked the Statistics page on the Starlink iPhone app before I went to bed, I saw there had been 12 minutes of "Beta Downtime" in the seven hours since our Starlink had been operating.

That must have caused the dropped connection, since the router was showing a red light and wasn't able to reconnect to the satellites. 

In the 27 or so hours the Starlink has been on our roof, download speeds have varied a lot -- from an unusual low of 6 Mbps, to the more typical 40-90 Mbps, all the way to an occasional 140 Mbps. 

I'm beyond happy with both the speed and reliability.

The connection hasn't dropped once due to an obstruction, according to the Statistics I made a screenshot of not long ago. There was no downtime in the last 12 hours due to an obstruction and just 49 seconds when there were no satellites. However, there was a lengthy Beta Downtime of 48 minutes this morning, the price of being a Beta tester. Likely that's an aberration.

As soon as the Starlink app was released a number of months ago, I went up on our roof in the same location the Starlink is now and tried to figure out if these three tall firs and a couple of significant oaks to the north of our house were going to pose an obstruction problem. We own the property they're on, but I wasn't eager to cut down the trees.

Looks like they aren't causing a problem, which is good news.

By the way, that 5 Mb iPhone photo just took 15 seconds to upload to Typepad, my blogging service. With DSL, I have to wait a couple of minutes for a photo to upload. At the moment Starlink has an upload speed of 5.1 Mbps, while our DSL usually is about .75 Mbps.

When I sat on our roof a few months ago in the same place the Starlink is now and checked for obstructions, trying to get the tilt of my iPhone at a more or less correct angle, I was sure those trees were going to be a problem, since they appeared in the lower portion of the Starlink obstruction checker.

But this afternoon I sat next to the Starlink and placed my iPhone alongside the dish at the same angle the dish is at, about 35 degrees, I believe. This is the pleasingly clear screenshot. So I guess the lesson is that it is difficult to tell what, if anything, is going to be an obstruction until someone actually installs a Starlink.


This is the speed test I did a few minutes ago. As noted above, this speed is pretty typical for what we've been getting the past 27 hours. It's great, given that we never get above 7 Mbps with our DSL, and that's on a good day.

 
The Starlink router is generating an acceptable wi-fi signal. It seems to be usable everywhere in our 3,200 square foot house. So all in all, there's little I can criticize about Starlink now that the dish is up on our roof with a clear view of the northern sky. 

Sure, it will be nice to have the Beta Downtime go away, since I don't feel comfortable ditching our DSL until Starlink is more reliable.

But if the outages are limited to a few minutes a day, that's fine. It's easy to shift over to DSL wi-fi, though now that I've experienced the much faster Starlink speed, it is already tough for me to put up with DSL.

A final note: I'm impressed with Starlink support staff. Whenever I've asked them a question, which so far has been limited to the status of an order, they've responded quickly and in a friendly manner.