Perhaps a bit of a strange title for this post but when I recently went to the countryside for a long weekend, I took my Starlink Mini along, just in case. And well, I’m happy I brought it along for the ride.
The ‘high speed Internet’ advertised on the web page of the hotel turned out to be pretty well used, with datarates in the sub 5 Mbps range in the downlink direction. Nice try, but it’s 2024. The mobile network was of course another option and while signal reception was good, data rates between of 5-10 Mbps in the downlink direction were also less than stellar (pun intended). But we were lucky to have an almost flat rooftop outside of our window. So out goes Mini-Dishy and after a minute and a half, we got Internet connectivity of 130 Mbps in the downlink direction and 30 Mbps in the uplink. Now that was something I could work with. From an obstruction point of view, we just had about the 50% of the sky required for a working setup. In the image above, Dishy faces away from the house, which blocks around 50% of the sky. But the houses in front of the window were all the same height as the building we staid in, and were, according to the obstruction diagram shown on the left, not a problem at all.
I’m glad I brought my setup along for the ride, including the water proof casing for my battery that could power Dishy for 2 hours 45 minutes while outside. Hm, I guess what I would need is a flat USB power cable that could go between the window frame and the window. Something for next time.