[Phillip Beall (W5EBC)]

All,

Several members of the Club have Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet.  Kathy and I do and we have been very, very, pleased with it.  The local Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) we had been with for 15+ years just wasn’t getting it done.  We try to “buy local” to the extent that we can, even if we pay more.  We want the local option to stay in business.  In this case the WISP was charging us nearly $200 a month for “OK” service, but if there was a power burp just about anywhere on their point-to-multi-point setup, we would lose service.  And in a power outage that was weather induced, when we needed it the most, theirs was consistently DOWN.  I do not think they even had little consumer UPSs at their sites.  It was just straight utility power…and bad.  Until I really lit them up a year ago they did not even email about outages and they took long holiday breaks with nobody answering the phones.  Well, the lights never go out in Elon Musk’s operation, so we made that change.

Yesterday I received an email about a new product that might interest campers, RVers, preppers, etc. – the Starlink Mini.  Details can be found here.  Just scroll down the page and look at what all it can do.  What a fascinatingly cool device!  I immediately figured “Developed for US military, first fielded in Ukraine.” – I would bet a $100 bill that my first thought was right.

If you are looking for a light-weight and highly portable satellite setup to take out into the field, maybe as a ham responding to a disaster of some kind, this might be a nice piece for your kit.

73

Phillip Beall (W5EBC)

[Steven Smith (KG5VK)]

Zogail and I bought a Star Link mini just a few moths after we bought our first RV

We have been very happy with the product

Most of the time we use it when we are at Camp Sites

providing cell Wifi as well as Internet for the TV and our LapTops

it has also backed up our normal WISP service we use at the home QTH

allowing us a backup

Cheers!

Steve

 

[Author]

Posts