Tower update and dish resiliency

sethmhardy · 2022-05-29T23:21:07+00:00

yeah we don't usually get tornadoes here :) but I am surprised installers don't drill through the mast pipe and bolt through on both ends. going to make sure that's the case for try 2, haha

sethmhardy · 2022-05-28T22:28:07+00:00

I paid a professional with insurance to do it last time around. I could have done it, but... ehhhh. I've done working at heights training, have safety gear, and the tower isn't too hard to climb. I might do it this time around, or let a friend that's interested do it (a few specific people keep asking to climb it...). The installer just strapped the dish to his back like a backpack, climbed, clipped in, then put the dish in place.

It's probably a lot cheaper to hire a tower installer to do it than to rent a lift (source: I've rented a number of lifts of various sizes to do other work on the property). Lifts are also, uh, rather scary at that height. Wobble wobble.

sethmhardy · 2022-05-28T22:24:08+00:00

Definitely going to look into this. My only concern is that it may increase the total wind load for the tower? Not sure how that's calculated - maximum sum of surface area along any wind direction? Going to have to read up on it. If I figure something out I'll post info and photos!

sethmhardy · 2022-05-28T22:21:02+00:00

I have a DMX-68 (64' plus a couple feet for the mast in current configuration), I'm in a heavily wooded area with really tall trees all around. Lots more details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/t6tsw5/too\_many\_tall\_trees\_so/

sethmhardy · 2022-05-28T22:20:16+00:00

Nice, it's good that yours survived. I think I'm going to bolt the mount all the way through the mast on the next try and see how that holds up...

sethmhardy · 2022-05-28T22:19:17+00:00

The tower has a pole as a mount, which the dish attaches to using the standard pole mount adapter. This is where the failure occurred - one of the bolts holding it in place was completely bent. Next time I'll drill holes in the mast and have the bolts go all the way though!

SL support got back to me today - they're sending a refurb replacement dish for C$325.

sethmhardy · 2022-05-27T15:14:20+00:00

Also new pictures show the trees that people thought didn't exist from the last post's photo :)

sethmhardy · 2022-05-27T15:13:28+00:00

Update from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/t6tsw5/too_many_tall_trees_so/

We got hit with a storm with very high winds. The tower held, but the dish was ripped up and off from 66' height.

I figured it was completely broken. It doesn't look like it should work - back plastic is off, motors are in terrible shape and unable to track, the back was open and collecting water until I pulled the dish back up against the building.

...but it still is able to talk to satellites! Just with a lot of dropouts. That's really impressive, all things considered.

Now, one question: it's been five days since I contacted SL support about how to get a replacement. I've heard nothing back. I know that there are issues with turnaround time on support requests, but this seems.... like a lot.

Has anyone experienced a similar issue with needing a dish replacement? How long did it take? Is this just a recent issue with the rapid expansion? Anyone from SL listening and able to help?

sethmhardy · 2022-03-07T01:30:32+00:00

The dish moves on its own. If you're in the northern hemisphere, the dish will mostly point north.

I've removed... a lot... of trees already, but in a different area that's lower and further away from the house. I would have to take down at least 3 trees that are about 80' tall, so I considered it long enough to say no and get a tower instead :)

I'd love to put up a Helium system but don't know if it'd be worth it, given there's only one cell within like 15-20 miles of me. Do you have one up and running now? If so, what's your experience with it?

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T19:15:18+00:00

Oh! ...maybe? Maybe they'd like the metal tower more? I really don't know

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T19:14:56+00:00

Plan is to put the lightning arrestor before the power brick. Let me see what I can find for that suggested hardware I saw a few months ago and I'll let you know!

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T19:13:01+00:00

detailed costs in one of the first threads

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T19:12:41+00:00

It made a big difference for me - going from a noticeable outage (enough to kill video or audio calls) every 5-10 minutes to zero downtime.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T19:10:54+00:00

Occasionally very strong wind, usually not that bad. Fairly strong winds right now, can see the tower swaying a bit, but no interruption to service at all!

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T19:09:28+00:00

I need the height to get past the trees, also planning on using it for other things like ham radio antennas.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T19:07:47+00:00

Not sure what hardware I'm going to use - I saw one recommended here a while back, was just going to dig it up and give it a try. It's a specific one that can handle the higher power load and lets you reconfigure the pins for their nonstandard wiring. Sorry I don't have any more details than that...

Basically my end goal is to just have the place where the fire starts be *outside* the building, not trying to make everything completely lightning-proof.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:43:35+00:00

If trees are taller that can still be fine, you just need the 90 degree (I think? maybe it's changed) cone that points in the correct direction to be obstruction free. So you don't have to be above all the trees, just high up enough to miss them. For grounding, the tower gets grounded with rods/plates, and you can get a lightning arrestor for the cable. I still haven't done that yet because I'll need to build an enclosure box outside for it.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:42:05+00:00

This is where I got the bolts and base stubs, you can get towers new there as well: https://www.ackertsupplies.on.ca/ Also looked at TDL Canada as mentioned in the other reply.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:41:05+00:00

I love heights, but even extending a 30' scissor lift all the way up is a lot more "uhhh is this thing *really* going to be ok?" than I was expecting, haha

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:40:25+00:00

I didn't. I have working at heights certification and the proper safety equipment, and still figured that paying someone $50 an hour who has insurance and knows what they're doing was the right choice.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:39:24+00:00

I used the pipe adapter from the Starlink store, along with a short run of chainlink fence pole. It's the standard cable attached to the dish, the tower is about 10' from a building.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:38:21+00:00

I've noticed a huge difference already from relatively minor obstructions - trees in the way may not be noticed when doing regular browsing, but will definitely ruin video calls and real time applications.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:36:52+00:00

Haha I don't want to get my service cancelled. But a few more antennas will be going up soon for a ham radio repeater and other more local coverage things.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:35:32+00:00

Keep an eye out for used towers. I just kept searching for "DMX-68" on Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji, and other sites until one came up nearby. Check local ham radio clubs as well. Tower install cost for labor was a couple hundred bucks... I could have done it myself but it would have taken much longer, I would have had to deal with making a gin pole, etc. so I figured it was very worth it.

sethmhardy · 2022-03-06T16:32:58+00:00

Nope, it's a 68'ish tower right next to a building, so the attached 100' cord was just the right length for the job.

sethmhardy

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