When Obstructions are really Obstructions

[DirecPC]

We are in an area where we are  surrounded by trees and have a few tall ones. Where the house is a cleared area .  Had Starlink professionally installed ,  installer picked a location atop the roof that gave the least obstructions on the Starlink app.   Its been running about a week and a half. Below are screen shots of our outage log for obstructions, and what  our visibility looks like from the app.  Visibility is mostly obstructed to the north, and in fact its where the dish usually points itself.   In terms of noticeable impact to service,  I cant really say we notice complete loss of service whenever its obstructed.   Speed tests are all over the map.   I can run  six successive speed tests and get widely different results each time,  usually in the 20-130 mbs range,  most commonly getting around 40 mbs.  I run speed tests at random times during the day.  Notice in the AM will usually get 130 but after noon, 20-40.   We usually have scattered rain showers in the PM. Never noticed a loss of service during rain though.  

I am using the Starlink router, have not added my own yet.   I have identified  that the WIFI signal strength is not that great, so I have been testing in line of sight within 20 feet of the router.

Question: how does every one else's outage logs and visiblity compare?   Is this "normal" and par for the course, or do I really need to improve the installation?

The  Dish is in the best place,  anyplace else on the roof is more obstructed.  The obstructions relate to maybe 5 trees,  locally it costs $1000 each to have them knocked down and hauled out.  Aside from the expense,  the idea of knocking down trees to get better internet does not sit well with me.    I have an option to put the dish up on a40 foot  tower to get better visibility.   I might do that,  am  just concerned if there is a problem in the future, it wont be acessible to anyone not  willing to go up a tower.

Anyway, if what I am experiencing is  "normal" then i probably will leave the Dish where its at.  If not, up the tower it goes.  

Compared to our DSL,  Starlink is 3X faster on its worst test and 10X faster on its worst upload.  The only thing I am a little nervous about is cutting the cord with the telephone company's DSL.   Our DSL goes out every two weeks more or less.  But  Invariably its up and running  after ten minutes and a  phone call and they "clear ports" or "reconfigure" and we are good for another couple of weeks.  If Starlink goes down,  I need the internet to email them,  and judging from the one ticket I sent then, it takes a week for them to get back.   We dont get even a cell  signal here, so, if I lost Starlink,  would have to get in my truck and drive about a mile away to get a signal to send a support ticket.  

Thanks in advance for all comments.

 

 

And this is what the visibility looks like in the app

[StarlinkLeader]

From the looks of the obstruction map you have trees in the distance in the north that are creating obstructions.

 

It requires a clear horizon line as well towards the north - This isn't clearly indicated unfortunately.

 

Also check dishy for bird poo etc.

[DirecPC]

On 7/11/2022 at 7:12 PM, StarlinkLeader said:

From the looks of the obstruction map you have trees in the distance in the north that are creating obstructions.

 

It requires a clear horizon line as well towards the north - This isn't clearly indicated unfortunately.

 

Also check dishy for bird poo etc.

Ok, so I brought the installer back out at my cost and had the DIsh moved and reinstalled atop a 40 foot tower,  trees no longer an issue.   Sorry I did,  latency has gone up, speeds now 30-50 max down, 3-5 up, generally web browsing is sluggish, would be better on my much slower DSL.    Performance was much much better when the Dish was on the roof and partially obstructed every 7 minutes.  Debating whether I should blow another couple hundred dollars and move it back  to the roof.   This was performance at various time yesterday partially obstructed on the roof, should i put it back?

Edited July 15, 2022 by DirecPC

[pbeaudet]

I would leave it on the 40 foot tower. Raising it up that high does not affect performance, but the obstructions will on your rooftop. Do not rely on speed tests, they will be all over the place depending on time of day and other factors.

[DirecPC]

15 hours ago, pbeaudet said:

I would leave it on the 40 foot tower. Raising it up that high does not affect performance, but the obstructions will on your rooftop. Do not rely on speed tests, they will be all over the place depending on time of day and other factors.

The first day with it up on the tower was kind of disappointing.    However within 24 hours  it  auto updated its software and auto rebooted a couple of times.  Speeds now are more or less what they were before, which is to say, all over the map. Generally 100-150 in the AM and  slower in the afternoon.   However, when I run the average and std deviation on the speeds, its back to where it was pre move, so OK I guess.

  Biggest change however is when I check the app for obstructions and outages,  now it says there are none. Other than a couple a couple of "network issues" over a 12 hour period, no obstructed issues,  so thats a major improvement.

Over the last couple of weeks we have periods of rain.  Rain does not seem to bother it much, except yesterday, when it went off line  for an hour and a half following a heavy thunderstorm. I manually rebooted it and it came back up.  Has me wondering how often I might have to do a manual reboot, biggest concern is when we go away and want to access our security cameras might not be able to.  Have similar episodic  loss of our service with our troublesome DSL  but I can actually phone Centurylink  from afar and they can "clear the ports" or whatever they do and get it going again. (By contrast contacted Starlink about the degraded performance after moving it to the tower day 1 and days later still have not heard anything back from them, not even an auto response; their CS is scary).  I half wonder if  when we go away I should put a timer on the power  to the SL router to force an auto reboot once a day or something.  Or maybe install a fail over router to switch to the DSL.  Or both.

I  was kind of expecting the speeds to be consistently closer to 200.    They  vary alot, almost seems cyclical how it goes up and down,  which I wonder  if its related to the orbits of different satellites and where it makes a connection.  In any case, at its worse performance, its still many many times faster than DSL, so aside from CS, am feeling better about this.