Mobile Starlink!

Today I completed our first big camper project: I mounted our Starlink dish on the roof of the camper!

Consistent internet access is a big part of what makes this trip possible for us. One can manage to stay connected in some places with 4G mobile data and with wifi in others, but there are many areas where neither can be found.

Enter Starlink, the satellite internet company owned by Elon Musk. Starlink has become a game changer for many, offering fast internet access almost anywhere, at a very reasonable cost. This would definitely be the case for us. I did my first video podcast interviews using Starlink this week and it performed very well, though I do wish it offered faster upload speeds.

Shortly before we left for South America, Starlink announced new Roam plans that fit our needs well. I ordered the new Flat High Performance dish several weeks in advance of our departure, but just before leaving I realized that it couldn’t actually be used with the Global Roam plans the way I thought. So I left it to be sent back and crossed my fingers that I'd be able to figure something out when we got to Santiago. Turns out not only was it easy to order to where we were staying, but I saved about half off both the upfront cost of the dish and the monthly service fees.

The dish as shipped is designed to be portable. The dish has a mast attached to it that slips into a stand. There are motors inside the dish that aim it towards the Starlink satellite constellation when it turns on.

There are a couple of challenges with the standard setup for our needs. First, it needs to be set up when you arrive at your destination and torn down when you hit the road. I was able to get the setup and tear-down process down to only a few minutes, but it was still a bit annoying. (I know, first world problems.) Plus we needed to store it when we were driving, and it’s a bit bulky. Finally, because the setup was only temporary, we’d have wires running out our roof hatch when the dish was deployed. The other big one is that you can’t use it while driving.

So, I knew from the beginning that I’d ultimately want to mount it on the roof of the camper.

I initially found a guy who I thought might be able to build me something, but when he quoted me a price that was equal to what I paid for the dish I took a pass on that option and decided to build it myself.

A quick trip to the hardware store told me what I had to work with: Aluminum angle extrusion was plentiful and pretty cheap, and would be easy to work with.

I put my engineering education to work and sketched out a mount. I then figured out what materials I’d need and went shopping. (Just like any home improvement project, I made at least four trips to the hardware store.)

We have a decent collection of tools that came with the rig, so I didn’t need to buy anything major to complete the project.

The basic structure was finished in one long day and turned out pretty much how I’d envisioned and sketched it. Over the subsequent few days I mounted it to a crossbar on the roof, installed the dish in it, and completed the installation by routing the Starlink cable from the router inside the camper, through cabinets and the camper’s sidewall, up to the roof, and then under a solar panel and across to the dish.

The scariest part of the project was drilling a hole into the back of the dish itself, which is necessary to disable the motors. There’s a very active Starlink Hacks group on Facebook and others before me had determined that the dish performs fine if mounted flat with the motors disabled, as well as where you need to drill to easily access the motor connector.

I finished running the cable to the dish just in time for a long drive towards the Andes mountains. The dish worked great on the road, though unfortunately in-motion use isn’t supported by Starlink and could be shut down at any time. We’ll enjoy it while it lasts.Read more