Starlink Installation is what this architectural company recently accomplished on its own. Great way to have backup Internet service.
HOME ARCHITECTS ® is known for designing custom mountain houses with multiple backup systems such as backup electrical power, multiple sources of potable water, and now backup Internet service. If your house only has a direct wire feed, such as fiber optic, which is excellent, the problem is that the main feeder wires at some point are going to be overhead, mounted on electrical company poles and these poles and the wires strung on them can be knocked down by trees and that act breaks the wires and it could be weeks or even months before repair crews appear to fix those torn wires and reconnect them.
The solution: this Architect likes to have a completely different type of backup for Internet. In this case, satellite dish wireless to SpaceX satellites, then wired from the dish to the house. The idea: when your wired Internet service (from miles and miles away) gets disrupted by high winds and other storm surges and gets knocked down, it would be very convenient to be able to then turn on the Satellite Internet service from Starlink. Which is what this Architect recently did at his own house in the mountains of western North Carolina, in the path of Hurricane Helene. The information provided here are notes from the Architect’s installation, and are not intended as instructions for anyone else. Only hire professional installers.
This Architectural firm had already designed this house to resist winds in excess of 115 mph per Code, and also built with superior systems to prevent weather water intrusion. And also had previously installed a whole-house Solar Power system, whole house emergency power backup generator with large LP gas tank, two independent sources of potable water, 4-filter water purification system with backwash, large in-house pantry, 500 g potable water storage tank, t&g roof sheathing glued and screwed to the roof trusses (and trusses fixed to the supporting walls and beam with galvanized steel straps and clips), special roofing underlayment of 40 mil thick uncured polybutylene (that seals around the hundreds of screws and ringshank nails), 50 year galvanized steel concealed fasteners standing seam metal roofing, special wall continuous rigid insulation with foil face and taped joints, termite flashing and more protective systems.
Back to Starlink.
This Architect knows a lot of things. But had never attempted to install a satellite dish, the wiring (inside and outside), supporting post, inside router. What makes this interesting is that he was able to accomplish these things personally. And Starlink works. Instructions from Starlink are completely graphic. Make sure you look closely at the diagrams.
ORDERING
you call up Starlink online and order via FedEx straight to y our home or business, using a credit card.
The first box arrived in about 3 days. The second box came about 10 days later.
STARLINK APP
After you load the Starlink app onto your cell phone, you’ll go through several steps. One of the first is the OBSTRUCTIONS analysis, which informs you as to what obstructions (if any) are between the Starlink satellites (which are numerous up above the sky in low earth orbit) and your phone in the exact location in which you are holding your phone. See above. Starlink will tell you to hold your phone up facing the sky and to move it around to view all of the sky. Be careful to hold onto something solid as this can be disorienting and you could lose your balance and fall. For the Architect’s dish location, it was mainly blue with a little red. Red are obstructions. If you look at your phone screen when you run this, you will see a very small “i” with a circle around it, which stands for “INFORMATION.” If you click on that, the app will inform you as to the exact percentage of obstructions. The Architect’s location was only 4.84%. In other words, the Architect’s location planned for his dish was over 95% clear. Although Starlink likes to inform you that anything less than 0% obstructions is not the best, the Architect has learned that the 95% clear range seems to work very well. Perhaps this might change during inclement weather (not sure). But right now, it is excellent. And BTW, this only takes a few seconds, not the hour indicated on the screen above.
And after you install the dish and fix it to a pole or other means, you then Align Starlink using the app, and it tells you if you need to twist the dish on the post to the east or west. The Gen3 dish comes fixed at a 20 degree fixed vertical angle, which you will need to point toward the north.
MOUNTING
If you’re not going to mount the Starlink dish directly on the ground (not recommended in the Architect’s opinion), or using a Starlink fitting for the fascia on a house and you want to have the Starlink dish up high (perhaps between 8 feet to 16 feet above the ground and attached to another existing structure, you may want to consider mounting the dish to a pole you provide. In this instance, there is a rather large trellis structure, about 12 feet above the patio and that location gives the best northern hemisphere signal with the least obstructions.
So above you see the 1.5″ x 6 feet long steel post the Architect purchased at a Lowes. The Architect would have preferred to have a hot dip galvanized coating, but that was not available. This post is EMT, which has a cold applied galvanized coating. Which does not last as long as a hot dip. So the Architect applied 3 coats of Rust O’leum “winter gray” “2X” primer + finish enamel. Verify this with SpaceX: their dish fitting appears to require a post from 1.25″ to 2.5″ in diameter. So the 1.5″ post the Architect used works. But this was for this one installation, no one else’s. You may also want to consider lighting protection from a professional.
If you look carefully (above), you might be able to see the 2 U-bolts used to secure the steel pole to the wood structure of the trellis. The Architect used a deep socket ratchet wrench and put some muscle into the torque. You don’t want the bolts letting the pole slip loose. That’s a red 12 foot tall Werner step ladder on the right. You’ve got to be very careful going up and down. Better hire that out to professionals.
BOX
Below is the Starlink box the dish and the Gen3 router comes in, typically via FedEx:
FITTING
People ordering other items like the 45m cable (approximately 150 feet long) and special fittings (like the one shown below) will likely come in a second box from Starlink.
The special trapezoid die cast fitting is used to attach the underside of the satellite dish to a pole. See the underside of the white rectangular dish in the photo 4th up from here. Starlink provides an allen wrench for the 2 screws to secure the fitting to a pole provided by the User.
WIRING
Either about 50 feet or about 150 feet of wire needs to be installed from the exterior satellite receiver dish to the interior gen3 router. Below are several photos of the wiring for this project. Other projects for other people in other locations will of course vary significantly. It’s probably Cat5, Cat5E or Cat6 exterior rated cable. But Starlink provides that. Professional installers have cautioned not to exceed the 150′ Starlink cable, which could result in signal loss. This Architect used the 45m (150′) cable and left about 10 to 20 feet of excess at each end coiled.
Zip-ties work great for lashing the Starlink cable onto existing elements that offer a continuous run.
Coaxial staple fasteners work well attaching the Starlink cable to flat large surface, however, finding stainless steel brads will be a challenge:
Diameter of the holes you need to bore through solid floors and walls is 3/4″. That will allows the Starlink end to easily pass through the hole. See above at floor. and below for the bore hole through the wall:
Architect squirted some Lexel sealant into this hole from the exterior and interior to keep weather and pests out (after running the cable at the desired final position).
This 18″ long auger drill bit from Lowes ($32) works well in this capacity:
The Architect’s Milwaukee plug-in old fashioned drill worked well. Be careful about breaking your wrist.
INSIDE ROUTER
Gen3 from Starlink. It’s the rectangular one on the left. The cylindrical Gen5 router to the right is for a fiber optic Internet system call SkyRunner, which went down when high winds pushed a tree over into the access street, knocking down the electrical lines as well as the fiber optic wires. Hence, this present installation of Starlink as a backup Intenet system.
Note that the Architect had to rotate the router 90 degrees on his upper railing. This is because when the Starlink router was pointed parallel with the railing, toward the great room, the wireless upstairs TV could not catch the Internet signal. After rotating the router, the TV accessed the router signal and worked great. There must be some sort of line of sight involved. So think about this is your wireless connections have any difficulties logging on.
Special Note: Although it’s hard to tell, the Architect’s devices in his house are mainly wired connections. The white accessory to the right has a cable (see pink square color-coded outlet) that allows the Architect to simply unplug that from one router to the other, to automatically connect 90% of his home’s TVs and computers into Starlink or Skyrunner, with no muss or fuss. Which makes the change-over much easier when one goes down and the other backs-up Internet service.
APPROXIMATE COSTS
Starlink Gen3 dish and router: $351+/-.
Starlink 150′ cable: $150+/-
Starlink diecast metal fitting for your pole: $75+/-.
Your metal pole: Lowes: $50 (they can cut to length).
300 count black plastic coaxial cable staples: Lowes $15+/-.
100 count clear plastic zip-ties Lowes: $20+/-.
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Material Cost: $661+/-.
Labor: either personal labor, or perhaps $500 for pro installation.
In this instance, sweat equity of the Architect.
starlink installation