Starlink Gen 3 Mounting options

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Dougcole

Dougcole

Guru
Joined
Jan 21, 2008
Messages
2,174
Location
USA
Vessel Name
Morgan
Vessel Make
'05 Mainship 40T
Hi All,


Sorry for yet another Starlink post, but I haven't seen much on the Gen 3, so I thought it deserved it's own thread.


We ordered starlink as our boat's Christmas present. To be honest, when i placed the order with starlink I didn't know the Gen 3 existed and didn't pay a lot of attention. I just bought what the website recommended for our area on the mobile plan. When the Gen 3 came in the mail, I was surprised that it was different.


But now that I have done the research, I think overall it is a better choice for us. The only downsides that I see for it vs. the gen 2 is that it uses more power and is a little bit bigger. Upsides are wider field of view (110 degrees vs 100), more waterproof, no articulation (made to sit flat), a better router with two Ethernet plugs and standard, off the shelf RG45 cable connectors.



There are TONS of youtube tutorials and articles about mounting the gen 2 on boats, but very little yet on the gen 3.


I am planning on mounting it on our mast just behind and slightly above the radome. I have an open space on a plate there that originally held a sat dome.


My thought is to use the SL pole adapter to attach a 12" long 1.5" diameter SS pipe to the bottom of the dish with a flange on the other end that would through bolt to the plate. But the one and only video I have found so far on mounting the gen 3 said the SL pole adapter is not very secure.


Anybody seen anything or had experience with the gen 3?


Thanks,


Doug
 
There's an unofficial website, starlinkhardware.com that has info on Gen 3. It sounds like many mounting options will be available, but different from Gen 2.

I have Gen 2 on my boat. Rather than a pole mount, I used a Shakespeare 2 ft mast extension with a hinge base. This mast has 1"/12 ,threads which is compatible with SL and various adapters that are available, including at Etsy. I'm not near the boat so I can't send pictures, unfortunately.
 
Ken E. said:
There's an unofficial website, starlinkhardware.com that has info on Gen 3. It sounds like many mounting options will be available, but different from Gen 2.

I have Gen 2 on my boat. Rather than a pole mount, I used a Shakespeare 2 ft mast extension with a hinge base. This mast has 1"/12 ,threads which is compatible with SL and various adapters that are available, including at Etsy. I'm not near the boat so I can't send pictures, unfortunately.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip Ken, I will check it out.

Does your mast thread directly into your SL dish? That wouldn’t work with the gen 3, there is no pole receptical on it. For the SL pole adapter you remove the kickstand and snap the adapter into its place. See pics for reference.
 

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The mast has 1" male threads. An adapter with 1" female threads screws onto the mast. The other end of the adapter is female and receives the Gen 2 male mount which has a spring-loaded retaining button that pops into the adapter. How Gen 3 accomplishs this, I don't know, but you should take a look at Starlink Hardware website for the lowdown.
 
Ken E. said:
The mast has 1" male threads. An adapter with 1" female threads screws onto the mast. The other end of the adapter is female and receives the Gen 2 male mount which has a spring-loaded retaining button that pops into the adapter. How Gen 3 accomplishs this, I don't know, but you should take a look at Starlink Hardware website for the lowdown.
Click to expand...


Thanks Ken. I checked out Starlinkhardware.com, they have two articles up comparing the features and benefits of the Gen 3 vs the Gen 2, but nothing about mounting options for the Gen 3 dish.


That's pretty much the same thing that I am running into everywhere.


Doug
 
Patemey said:
Here's a good review of the Gen3 dish. I was considering it until I saw that Gen3 needs manual alignment. On a house - one and done. On a boat - every time you want to use it. At anchor - not feasible
https://www.starlinkhardware.com/starlink-gen-3-dish-launched/
Click to expand...

I'm interested in how the Gen 3 dish will do on boats and RV's. The present up-model $2,500 'marine' dish is also fixed and many boats are using these with success, so Gen 3 may work fine.
 
The Gen 3 uses a manual approach to satellite alignment. If using a Gen 3 on a boat I would imagine you would want to mount it flat. With the Gen 2 it goes flat when ever it senses the boat is moving.
 
I just read an article that Starlink told everyone to dispose of their Gen 3 pole adapter because of a design flaw. They will send out a redesigned version to everyone who had one.
 
Here’s a user post from a Facebook group on the Gen 3 setup for pointing north vs other directions and laying flat vs angled. It’s just a single test, but it reflects that in a marine application it may need to be continually adjusted to ensure a good connection.
I placed the Gen 3 Standard antenna on top of my car, laying it flat across the roof racks, I powered it up using my Goal Zero Yeti 3000 and waited for the system to boot.

After two or three attempts to connect to a satellite, the system presented a message telling me that the antenna needed to be angled on its kickstand instead of laying flat and oriented north. I tried just orienting it to the north but that didn't work, either. As soon as it was angled properly and oriented to the north, it connected to the satellite system and I was on line.

Once I was online, I started moving the car in a straight line but at less than 10 mph and the system stayed online, as advertised. Once I turned the antenna away from north, the system dropped offline.

So I guess the answer is that my single test showed that the Gen 3 Standard antenna will not acquire a signal when laid flat no matter the orientation. At least in my latitude (Houston) it needs to be angled up on the kickstand and oriented north. As a side note, it maintained its online connection when angled up to about 30 degrees left and right of north.
Click to expand...
 
Patemey, the GEN 3 dish is meant for rural residential use mounted facing North, (only available in the US select locations for now) it does not have a motor to rotate. The facebook writer found out that the dish array does not work in the flat position.
Unlike the standard which does work flat as boaters have found. SL is creating purpose built dishes.

For reason yet to become known, they want dishes to point North and pick up the northern satelites.
 
SteveK said:
Patemey, the GEN 3 dish is meant for rural residential use mounted facing North, (only available in the US select locations for now) it does not have a motor to rotate. The facebook writer found out that the dish array does not work in the flat position.
Unlike the standard which does work flat as boaters have found. SL is creating purpose built dishes.

For reason yet to become known, they want dishes to point North and pick up the northern satelites.
Click to expand...


Yup. Was helping the OP with a real world experience from a use whose application was similar to boat movement.
 
The jury has returned a verdict. The new Gen 3 antenna is a no go for most boaters.

If you never leave the dock it might be acceptable after receiving the new pole mount adapter.
 
While I did not need it, I went ahead and turned on mobile priority, the dish went flat at some point thereafter and back to tilt when I turned it off.

Interesting that the early pioneers who discovered making the dish go flat, stay flat have given SL a way to make extra coin. Flat does work in motion under 10 knots when it is flat.
 
After much deliberation I decided to return my Gen 3 standard dish and order a Gen 2 Standard actuated dish. It's a shame because there are some nice upgrades in the gen 3, notably the cable and improved router, but I am nearing the end of my 30 day return window and just can't take the risk that the gen 3 won't work on the boat.
 
Now I am really stumped. When I canceled the order for the bushing from LB3 designs and mentioned that it would not work on a boat, he came back and said:


[FONT=&quot]How come it didn’t work?, its suppose to have better reception, and I was told gen2 couldn’t adjust fast enough and needed motors disabled.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Calling me would be a waste of time, I just engineer mounts, but there are 2 small business making flat mounts for these. I would call them see what they have to say.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]They indicate on the FB group (starlink hacks) that they work. Your comments are new and interesting. I might post them over there..[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Actually I am going to post them over there. I wonder if they put a tilt indicator in them to stop people from flat mounting them. To take away from their HP series….[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thanks for bringing it to my attention.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]https://www.trioflatmount.com/[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]https://star-mountsystems.com/products/12v-conversion-for-generation-3-star-mount-for-starlink
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So I called Star Mount Systems and spoke to the owner, who was very knowledgeable. He said "anyone who tells you the gen 3 dish won't work, flat mounted, in motion, is full of sh!t. They don't know what they are talking about and you shouldn't listen to them. We have thousands of mounts out there. We live stream, in motion, on off road vehicles from foreign countries and don't lose the signal."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So now I am thinking of keeping it.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]What a pain.
[/FONT]
 
And here is a reply from Trio, another company making mounts for starlink:


[FONT=&quot]Hi Doug,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thanks for your email. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I haven’t heard or experienced that myself. I would question what latitude the individual who said that was at - if it was correct. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]There has been widespread use and testing already (including my own on land vehicles) and the dish works great when flat mounted.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I hope that helps. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions,[/FONT]
 
Dougcole said:
And here is a reply from Trio, another company making mounts for starlink:


[FONT=&quot]Hi Doug,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thanks for your email. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I haven’t heard or experienced that myself. I would question what latitude the individual who said that was at - if it was correct. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]There has been widespread use and testing already (including my own on land vehicles) and the dish works great when flat mounted.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I hope that helps. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions,[/FONT]
Click to expand...

These comments jive with the fact that the SL $2,500 antenna is fixed, lies flat and works fine in motion.
 
For the public, Starlink is largely a technical mystery. A lot of what is known is from official documents that Starlink filed with the FCC to license their satellites, gateways, and ground terminals. First off the apparent reason for “pointing north” is mainly one of orbital mechanics. In the northern hemisphere there are more satellites in view if the antenna is tilted to the north as a majority of Starlink’s satellites are inclined 53 degrees in respect to the equator. The ground track of any given satellite inclined at 53 degrees rises to 53 degrees north latitude and then starts descending back toward the equator. This results in more satellites to the north as the ascending and descending orbits converge. Since each user antenna is licensed to operate down to an elevation angle of 25 degrees above the horizon, by tilting the antenna about 15 degrees toward the north, the first two generations of antennas could see down to 25 degrees toward the north and more satellites are in view. The HP antenna and Gen 3 antenna apparently are able to work well down to 25 degrees without the tilt. The little tilt they have is mainly so rain doesn’t puddle on the antenna.

For those who travel north of 53 degrees, antennas then try to tilt south as there are more satellites to the south. This works up to about 60-63 degrees and then the satellites to the south are too low. At that point there are more satellites to the north, as the satellites in the 70 and 97 degree orbits are converging to the north.

Also in a recent FCC filing Starlink asked to extend their authority to operate antennas north of 53 degrees down to 10 degrees above the horizon. This is probably because Starlink only has about 1/2 the number of satellites planned in the 70 and 97 degree orbits with no launches in the last 7 months and none planned in the next few months. They offered Alaska customers 1/2 price for HP antennas to take advantage of this lower angle.

If you want to take power hit of the Gen 3 antenna it should work a little better than previous versions in SE Alaska. In my case mounting the Gen 3 antenna would be much harder than the mounting the Gen 2.

Tom
 
Here is the mount I am going with. They emailed me today and said that they are releasing a 1" insert tonight, which means it will work with a standard 12" long stainless antenna extension and mount.


Here is a youtube review of the flat mount made by the same company. It looks really solid, if anything the pole mount seems even more secure.



https://www.trioflatmount.com/shop/p/gen3polemount


 
tpbrady said:
For the public, Starlink is largely a technical mystery. A lot of what is known is from official documents that Starlink filed with the FCC to license their satellites, gateways, and ground terminals. First off the apparent reason for “pointing north” is mainly one of orbital mechanics. In the northern hemisphere there are more satellites in view if the antenna is tilted to the north as a majority of Starlink’s satellites are inclined 53 degrees in respect to the equator. The ground track of any given satellite inclined at 53 degrees rises to 53 degrees north latitude and then starts descending back toward the equator. This results in more satellites to the north as the ascending and descending orbits converge. Since each user antenna is licensed to operate down to an elevation angle of 25 degrees above the horizon, by tilting the antenna about 15 degrees toward the north, the first two generations of antennas could see down to 25 degrees toward the north and more satellites are in view. The HP antenna and Gen 3 antenna apparently are able to work well down to 25 degrees without the tilt. The little tilt they have is mainly so rain doesn’t puddle on the antenna.

For those who travel north of 53 degrees, antennas then try to tilt south as there are more satellites to the south. This works up to about 60-63 degrees and then the satellites to the south are too low. At that point there are more satellites to the north, as the satellites in the 70 and 97 degree orbits are converging to the north.

Also in a recent FCC filing Starlink asked to extend their authority to operate antennas north of 53 degrees down to 10 degrees above the horizon. This is probably because Starlink only has about 1/2 the number of satellites planned in the 70 and 97 degree orbits with no launches in the last 7 months and none planned in the next few months. They offered Alaska customers 1/2 price for HP antennas to take advantage of this lower angle.

If you want to take power hit of the Gen 3 antenna it should work a little better than previous versions in SE Alaska. In my case mounting the Gen 3 antenna would be much harder than the mounting the Gen 2.

Tom
Click to expand...


Thanks for the reply and interesting info Tom. And yes, they seem pretty darn vague with their tech info.



We will primarily use our starlink in the Bahamas, so operating north of 53 degrees shouldn't be a problem. Anything north of about 30 degrees is an issue for this Floridian. :)


Doug
 
Patemey said:
Here's a good review of the Gen3 dish. I was considering it until I saw that Gen3 needs manual alignment. On a house - one and done. On a boat - every time you want to use it. At anchor - not feasible.
https://www.starlinkhardware.com/starlink-gen-3-dish-launched/
Click to expand...

I have the Gen 2 and satisfied so will not be getting a Gen3. The link does suggest the Gen2 is better for boats when flat mounted.
With Gen 3, manual aiming is now required. There are no motors in the dish, so users will have to rotate the position of the antenna if instructed to do so by the Starlink app during setup. Whether you are using the included kickstand, or one of the mounting accessories, the Gen 3 dish is intended to be at a 20 degree angle. Users will just have to rotate the dish horizontally to point in the direction that gives the best signal.
Click to expand...
This sounds like the dish itself is directional, whereas the Gen2 is not.
Better reception is be expected from a directional antenna which remains pointed in the optimal direction, not going to happen on a boat.
 
tiltrider1 said:
The Gen 3 uses a manual approach to satellite alignment. If using a Gen 3 on a boat I would imagine you would want to mount it flat. With the Gen 2 it goes flat when ever it senses the boat is moving.
Click to expand...
Going to watch it more often underway, going flat may be a way to seek perferred signal direction before it tilts that way. Don't know. Early users did not report this occurring, so may be new programing. Early users found that making it stay flat worked in all directions and turned off the motors.

Now SL does not want the cheaper Gen2 unit to work in motion and offers the HP model at higher purchase and monthly.
Again, this Gen3 was designed for rural areas that have less targetted satelittes in a fixed mount. The HP dish is larger and just because this one is larger does not mean a cheaper solution for boats. Buyer beware.
 
tiltrider1 said:
The jury has returned a verdict. The new Gen 3 antenna is a no go for most boaters.

If you never leave the dock it might be acceptable after receiving the new pole mount adapter.
Click to expand...


Thanks for your post, but I do want to point out that there is a good bit of conflicting information out there, and not a single person in this thread has actually tried a Gen 3 standard dish on a boat yet. Nor has anyone provided a link to anyone who has actually used one on a boat and said that it doesn't work.



There is one link posted in this thread to one FB user who says he tried it tied to the roof racks of his car.


Here is a link to youtube review of the gen 3 for boats, he seems to think it will work, though it sounds like he hasn't actually tried it at the time of his review either.



And here is a link to a review of an aftermarket flat mount by the same youtube channel.


In one of the comments he is asked about manual alignment. Here is his reply:


We have used the V2, High Performance and now V3 in a flat position mini the boat. It has been reliable laying flat in all instances. They are all phased arrays, which electronically tracks satellites vs relying on directional orientation. It does have to have an unobstructed view of the skyline though. A very close mast or being in the direct beam of a radar are common issues on a boat to watch out for. The standard V2 drops out more often as your boat moves at anchor as it keeps repositioning mechanically. That sparked most boat owners to disable the motors and position it flat. All of that said, Starlink does have a 30 day return policy for any reason. So you have flexibility if it doesn’t work for your unique requirements.

I also spoke with two companies who manufacture mounts for the Gen 3. Both of them told me, in no uncertain terms, that they have tested the Gen 3 flat and in motion and that it will work on a boat.


All that said, I have not gotten down to my boat (which is six hours away from my home) to test it yet. I will be down there next week and will let everyone know what I find.


I'm not saying that it will or will not work. But the jury has certainly not returned a verdict at this point.
 
Last edited:
I am posting this message from the boat, while connected through my Gen 3 Standard dish.



Got down to the boat this evening in Stuart and laid the dish, flat, on top of the bimini then plugged it in. It immediately locked on to satellites and both my phone and laptop connected with zero issues.


Since I am tied up in my slip, I decided to simulate swinging at anchor. Turned the dish 90 degrees while streaming video, it did not drop the signal. Turned it again and moved it to the other side of the bimini. No signal drop. Moved it down onto the aft deck. No signal drop despite some obstructions.


My slip is bordered on one side by a very thick row of 30' tall bamboo, so the view of the sky is not as clear as it would be in many marinas or on anchor. The bamboo is about 10' from my boat.



I haven't tried it under way yet, but I expect it will work fine at less than 10 knots.



I am getting about 50 mbps download, not blazing, but plenty fast for my needs.


Interestingly, the SL app is telling me to tilt the dish, but it is working fine laying flat.



Thought you all might be interested.


Doug
 
We have a Generation 2 antennae on our house. When I first did the install, the dish as expected, oriented to the north. However, in the last year or so, it changed and now looks east. My understanding that this was done to use satellites over the Atlantic which did not have as much traffic as satellites over land.

We are in central NC and not on the coast but looking at the StarLink satellite map, we certainly would be using satellites Down East and over the ocean, which would minimize traffic.
 
is the black post part of the antenna package or its separate?
 
ofer said:
is the black post part of the antenna package or its separate?
Click to expand...
I bought the StarLink Standard wall mount. The only items I used from the standard wall mount was the pole and the mount plate.
 
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