More boat nerd project information…

Antenna Choices

When you sign up for Starlink you have a choice of either a “High Performance” antenna, or the standard antenna that has somehow come by the nickname “Dishy”. Months ago it was announced that Starlink applied to the FCC for a license for a new “mini” dish, but as of this writing (Dec 2023) there has been a new antenna announced at the same price point as “Dishy” It is not yet clear to me if this is a replacement, or a line extension.

Here is how currently available options compare, as I see them.

High Performance	Dishy
$2500	$600
Easier to mount on any flat surface. A mast radar mount works well, and various arch mounts are also possible.	Potentially more complex solutions needed to assemble a permanent mounting. No single solution works on all boats.
Fewer short interruptions, might be important for people who need a very stable connection for two-way video feeds.	Performance is more than satisfactory for regular web usage.
About 50% higher power demand.	Currently lowest power option.
No modifications needed.	Best performance underway achieved with internal modifications that will void warranty.
Designed for use while moving, even at highway speeds.	Although not designed for use while moving, it does fine at normal sailboat speeds. Rumor has it that using it while moving voids the warranty, but I am not sure of that.
Connects to multiple satellites at once for a connection more reliable and less subject to obstructions and interruptions.	Only one satellite connection supported, so less power needed, but also subject to more interruptions.

There is not a simple “always correct” choice for a cruiser. If you are power limited, the “Dishy” option is likely your best choice. Putting together an elegant permanent mount of a Dishy can consume much of the cost difference between the choices, but if you use a simple mount, it is clearly the budget option. If you do not expect to use Starlink underway, the Dishy is easy to remove from a temporary mount and store away while you are sailing.

If your primary use is going to be remote work off grid, then the high performance antenna is likely to be your best choice. Maybe you can get work to pay for it, or at least get a tax deduction 😉

We went with the “Dishy”. We have not yet fully worked out how we are going to mount it in the long run, but its performance so far has been excellent for routine web browsing, at the dock and underway.

Router Information

Startlink Dishy comes with a WiFi router in an elegantly stylish case that plugs into 110/220V 50/60Hz. Mixed in with all the rest of the misinformation on the internet, I have seen people say this can only be used with a pure sine wave inverter. That is certainly not true. Ours ran fine on our ancient Xantrex 110V modified sine-wave inverter that was built in the last century. Will it work on your old inverter? Probably…

The Starlink router works fine, it is very simple to set up. If you can easily feed it AC power, you might be perfectly happy running it. We felt we could improve the integration of this part of the system into our boat’s systems.

Inside the sexy Starlink Router case are three things. A pretty generic WiFi router. An AC to DC converter to supply 48V DC to the Antenna, and a POE (Power Over Ethernet) injector. That’s it. No magic. I have put together a set of components to do exactly the same thing powered from our boat’s 24V DC system–no AC power required. Since we already had a DC powered WiFi Router onboard that was being used all the time, it did not make any sense to spend the power to run TWO routers, and especially since we could stop using the inverter to power the Starlink router..

Here is a photo of the breadboard of the system as I assembled and tested it.

A 24 Volt to 48 Volt converter, a high voltage POE injector, and a Pepwave MAX-BR1-MINI-LTEA-W Router. The Starlink cable from the Antenna has been modified with a standard RJ-45 plug, and there is a “special adapter” cable between the POE injector and router. Starlink cabling standards are different than everybody uses, so be sure you get them right, and there were a few modifications to the Pepwave setup needed. (I’ll write that up shortly…)

For someone using Starlink as a primary connection for video conferencing, or other highly connection sensitive applications in an area they also have access to a marina WiFi, and/or a cellular data connection, a PepWave router is an awesome piece of kit. It can seamlessly switch from one data source to another, in a priority of your choosing. These things can do everything you ever imagined, and a whole lot more. A simple setup is pretty simple, but you can dive in as deep as you need. PepWave makes many different ones of different capabilities. If you need this capability, do what I did, talk to a networking expert who can help you make a selection, and the initial setup.

Despite what you might read on the internet, once configured properly, you WILL be able to fully interact with the Starlink antenna using the Starlink app with the generic router. If you are not a total network nerd, you might want to be sure that you use a router that you can confirm will work, and make whatever setup changes are needed. There are a few router specific functionalities that will disappear (Like the advanced speed test) but everything else works exactly as you expect.

Power Use

You can see in the above photo the Ammeter readout of the consumption of both the Starlink Antenna and the Pepwave router (1.62A) This number is highly dynamic, and varies from 1.3 A to 2.1A (All measured at 26.9 Volts). Using nothing more than my eyeballs to estimate it, an average use of about 1.6A or 1.7A (or, multiplying by 26.9V, 43W to 45W) seems like a good number to plug into an energy budget. The router by itself has a typical power draw of 13W. This is not a negligible power consumption, but not a huge one either.

All these numbers are for the “Dishy” antenna. I don’t have any measurements for the High Performance antenna. As minimum, I would expect the High Performance antenna might need a 24V to 48V converter with a higher rating that the 120W model I chose to power our Dishy.

I had no quick and simple way of measuring the energy use for the system when it was powered through the Starlink router, so I don’t have those numbers.