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We use Wireless Nation 4G who are a reseller of VF, we can get signal in places where our cellphones don't, however it isn't as good in the real remote as Starlink but I'm also not paying money to support Tesla which in my book is a win win.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pengy
I wish there was an alternative to Starlink but there isn't so I'll avoid it as long as possible.
Wireless nation were running off Spark towers here, we had to shift to them from Spark as Spark had the area on 'Stop/Sell' meaning that they had already allocated all of the theoretical data so would not alter our plan to give us more data. So we went to WN, same modem, same towers, same everything and saved $20 a month to get the next plan up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Jack
Worked great for a couple of years until Chorus repositioned the transmitters to service town better (we are 6Km out of the urban boundary) and now we had to go to Starlink as no other options!!!
Well that was a whoops. My Starlink Mini knockoff 2m cable turned up today from Aliexpress - 8 days to my letter box on Rural Delivery, every step tracked to perfection as per normal. Except it wasn't a 2m cable, it was a 5.5x2.1mm DC-DC male-female power adapter to allow you to use a different power supply cable in the back of the dish and still retain the IP67 watertightness rating (effectively a short sealed male plug and a female socket). Hmmm. Ahhh yep that'd be right, the cart had a stuff up on me and I had to reload it and restart the order and obviously didn't check the item was still correct - du'oh!
Oh well, go back and order the right one, this time a 5M cable so I have a bit more length. I found a car charger ex JB Hifi that has the same (or slightly higher) USB-C PD rating as the Starlink Mobile adapter kit's charger, $28 with the NZDA discount there which is much more acceptable than the $170 Starlink wants for the factory kit! Still waiting for Starlink to ship the damn thing though, probably have all the accessories and still be waiting for it to arrive.
Did a West Coast jet boat trip last March with the inflatable. Took both our home modem and a brand new Starlink kit with us so we could share all the GoPro footage with friends and family. Tried to upload a few 150-250 mb videos via YT. Modem with 3 bars coverage was still spinning its wheels 3 hours later. So dragged out the Starlink, set it all up, connected. Bam! all three videos uploaded in under 9 minutes. That's the sort of difference you will experience.
He is otherwise occupiedQuote:
Originally Posted by No.3
:ORLY:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pengy
Well, I guess you have a point...
I couldn't find that offer while I was having a look around.Quote:
Originally Posted by NZ32
Apparently it was offered out to Australian addressed customers who had their Roam plan on hold. I haven't seen it here either, so it's a case of $90 a month for 50GB when you want to use it, and then on hold...
So I did the setup of the new Mini kit today. As painful as I expected...
As an existing residential customer I selected existing customer, already have the kit and then hit the 'Order' button like 900 times before it did anything. Then when it did, it showed Roam 50Gb as the plan and then loaded the plan on my account as another Residential plan. WTF? Cheaper than full Roam but not what I ordered...
Proceeded to beat my skull on everything I could find while trying everything to avoid contacting Starlink customer support. I eventually gave up, cancelled the 2nd Residential plan and lodged a ticket. Walked away and took some deep breaths while cursing everything Starlink related (I hate their website, it look very pretty but is one of the most bug contaminated sites I have used). When I went back I tried ordering the Roam 50Gb plan from inside my account but you can't do it unless you order a kit at the same time, no option to order plan only (I already have the kit). You have to from the look of it, go in from the Starlink/NZ/Roam page and that's the only way to get an option to order the service plan without having to buy a complete new kit.
Gave it a bit more destressing time, and went back in and reactivated the Residential plan which seemed to open up the ability to change service plan types and magically it all worked and was running within 30 seconds (why did it not do it the first time???). Now happily running off Starlink Mini as well as the Gen2 Dishy. As an existing customer I had no option on plan commencement dates, so I have one month pro-rata as my 'first month' (Starlink speak for the first month is a half month as I'm halfway through my existing plan). One thing I found, is once the account accepted the second Residential plan the Mini kit serial number was lodged against that plan which stopped me doing anything else with it cold.
Hopefully that helps if someone else runs into the same thing, it's very unclear from the Starlink site what you have to do as an existing customer to get a kit that you already have set up!
I have had to change the charger adapter I got to a UGreen brand 130w car charger that has a USB-C 100w outlet. The Cygnett 65w one listed earlier powered up the Mini dish twice but on the second start after a few minutes the wifi connection disappeared and the blue status LED on the dish was 'fast flashing' indicating an issue.
I don't have any way of testing the Cygnett charger to confirm but I'd guess that something in the buck-boost converter inside it has stopped cooperating.
Just so someone doesn't get one of the Cygnett ones thinking it will do the job and it dies like the one I got appears to have done - go for something with a 100w USB-C socket in it like the UGreen 130w ones.
So Ive done a trial two nights in a row, using a 27k power bank, averaging 23 watt draw over 2h 45 mins, with a spare device running 10 YouTube videos at once to simulate data usage.
Snow melt turned off.
And that is down to 30 percent battery on the power bank, the power bank seems to draw really fast after that testing on recharging torches etc and will be fine with a small solar panel for topups.
Its a pretty good system for what it is, and what I intend it for, simple and easy to use for the less tech initiated.
The hunters I hunt with all carry Epirbs anyways for emergencies, I view it as no real difference to mountain radio or inreach/ sat phone
Power it up, connect to the network and make a standard call via wifi
Another Important thing Ive been made aware of on the FB pages is that Starlink now uses 2 factor authentication and you cant turn it off.
The problem that is, if you log out of the app and go to log back in with out an external data connection (Starlink on pause only allows data for the Starlink app) like wifi or phone data, you cannot authenticate via email or txt to re-log in.
Something to be aware of.
Yea did pick up on the two factor thing. Worth checking your logged on every few weeks.Quote:
Originally Posted by striker
Thanks to the person who used my referral link. Looks like I will get a month free in a few weeks
Hmmm, that could be a pain - will have to check that out. Thx!Quote:
Originally Posted by striker
I checked out the two-step verification, yeah it's a bit of a pain. I lodged a support ticket with Starlink on it, raising it as an issue. They have no workaround at the moment as the two-step is a company mandated thing, but the guy I spoke to at Starlink in the US (called me back straight away so kudos for that) has noted down why I was asking about it and will raise it as a possible issue that needs a solution with his team. As far as he is aware, there is no equivalent to the Aussie $15/5Gb plan coming for NZ which sucks but there you go.
Looks like there is a new backup plan but not showing on there website. $17/10GB, had an email about it before. Much more palatable than $90 so I will likely take it up. May even mount it to the top of my ute to save dropping out on calls.
Attachment 271481
Yeah, my conversation with Starlink in the US a couple of weeks ago about the two-step verification not being able to be used if you end up in a no power/no coverage situation might have had some results. The guy was really good to deal with, spent about 15 minutes working through the issue then mentioned a little about what we've had over here in the last wee while with weather events and sudden huge rainfall amounts not giving us a lot of warning time to reactivate a paused plan.
He was quite surprised with the lack of backups we have and was going to take it back to his team, as he didn't have any other plan to offer apart from the $90 or the full $150 (I asked about an equivalent to the Aussie's AUS$15/5Gb but at that point no options for NZ).
He was going to get back to me I thought, after he had discussed with his team - but I guess the email we received is my answer!
I have a starlink account and do not require 2 factor authentication to log on - via their app or via a webpage.Quote:
Originally Posted by striker
Try logging out and then back in - if you stay logged in on either webpage or app you will be able to go back in without the two factor.
For me, the pain was if I needed to log in from cold it required the code off an email it sent you to allow you to log in - and if you were out of coverage and couldn't receive the email it stopped the works from proceeding past that point. If I was at home with power, no issue could go straight back in or at the worst doing the full log in from cold it was a 30sec wait for the email with the code to arrive and in - no problem.
Not sure I understand this whole needing to be logged in thing? Take starlink, turn on, connect, away you go. Been using mine the past couple of weeks in fiordland and up on the main divide etc and never needed to be logged in to anything?
Its fine if you have a current subscription, more of a pain if you have it on hold and are trying to restart it without an internet connectionQuote:
Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst
Do you stop and start or just a continuous subscription on a credit card?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst
Yeah, only an issue if you have the unit's subscription on pause and decide to restore it to active status but need to log in to do so and are not in coverage or for some other reason can't receive the two-step verification email. If you can't log in you can't unpause the subscription, so the unit is useless. You could as an alternative go via the Starlink helpdesk service as an emergency step but that requires coverage as well.
If the unit's subscription is not on pause, there isn't any issue and if you remain logged into the app you are also OK as you don't need to log in via two-step authentication.
The reason this is an issue for me is I have a Gen 2 Starlink setup attached to my house two stories up - which is my usual unit on a Residential Lite plan. The Starlink Mini is my travel and emergency back up setup, and with the plan options they did have it was either $90 a month or $150 a month for a subscription I was only using every other month for a couple of nights or as an emergency backup. This is why the Mini kit's subscription was on pause most of the time.
As noted above I had a really good constructive chat with a Starlink rep about this issue after he called me basically straight back from the US after a couple of emails back and forwards to their support desk, I was actually really impressed with the level of service as a lot of people have found it's hard to actually talk to them. I explained what I wanted to achieve with the Mini kit, and what the issue with the two-step setup was and also gave a couple of examples like Gabrielle and the Edgecumbe flooding. It would seem that the result of that is the $17/10Gb a month plan noted above, which I think is a really good compromise. I'm happy to pay $17 a month to keep the unit live and avoid the issues with the two-step authentication - and if I need more data I can either upgrade the plan to one of the other Roaming options or pay the $/Gb fee for extra as I can use the Mini to log in to the Starlink app with no issues.
The plan's run month by month or pro-rata if like me you already have another unit active and you join another subscription plan onto it. The monthly fee is by automatic payment to whatever you set it up to.Quote:
Originally Posted by striker
Because I move my Gen3 between two addresses (typically a few weeks at each then swap location) it's needs to be on Roam @ $222/mth . I asked them if I access a 2 address, active at only 1 address at any time type plan. No deal.
Then asked if it'd remain $222/mth if I brought a second set of hardware to avoid the hassle of removing it and the cable from roof mount and transporting it. No deal, in fact worse as wanted 2 x fixed @ $159 each per month, or 2x $79 for the Lite plan however I'm sure about it's speed for work. The person did suggest that I could put one of them on pause each time I moved. That doesn't work as my moves rarely coincide nicely with calendar months. A bit frustrating really.
(I brought a aliexpress cable to partially help with the transport hassle)
Yeah i meant as a credit card sub, it can be set up to direct credit each month unless you pause itQuote:
Originally Posted by No.3
Yep, mine is auto payment each month on credit card. They just send a payment reminder a few days before and an invoice when they bill.Quote:
Originally Posted by striker
Ah yea i just have mine rolling over so it's always active anyhow
If it helps I have not noticed any speed difference on the Residential Lite plan to when we were on the Residential version. It is a bit quicker on the Gen 2 than the Mini hardware, but not sure if that is the Roam plan on the Mini unit or the hardware's capability? Having said that the Mini is achieving somewhere between Tauranga fiber broadband and VDSL so it's very very acceptable - I was seeing between 90Mbps and 120Mbps when I was playing with it which is not far behind the Gen 2 setup.Quote:
Originally Posted by uk_exile
If you look around you could pick up a decent second hand kit for around a couple hundy (as long is it is unlocked and the plan transferred to you as if it's new it's locked to the first owner for 6 months). That way you could avoid relocating the kits and drop back to the Residential plan, take a couple of months or so but you'd be saving long term?
@No.3 I really did think about trying the Residential Lite but missing end one of two important work calls would cause more hallse than the $222 vs 2 x $79 so for now I'll stick with the $222 Roam single kit. Suspect there will be quite change in this market over the next 2-3 years. Really impressed by the reliability over the last few months.
Interesting little adapter out of China - converts an 18v powertool battery to power the Starlink Mini.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...Cquery_from%3A
You can screw an adapter to the top of the battery converter doohickey that has a piece of plastic the same diameter that the Starlink Mini's tube mount fits onto so that the Starlink Mini fits to the top of the 18v battery pack. I'm picking that a 6AH standard power tool battery would give a decent runtime too, be a good day of use if an airline approved power bank will give 6 or 8 hours or so. I can't see any issues with low power being supplied being a nominal 18v battery pack - this is similar to what the Starlink AC charger and also the USB-C charger supplies to the dish...
you see this idea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaS8F9a0AQ4
Pretty cool, very portable. I would like to see it done with a lid over the batteries and a power connection that has the rubber waterproofing boot so the dish retains it's IP rating (I think that's slightly more important in NZ especially if we are plonking it on the ground with dew etc).
One of the key things I saw from that video was his point about some power tool batteries not all being low-voltage protected on the battery and that a lot of brands rely on the tool to do this - I wasn't aware of that as I have only really used Hitachi/Hikoki, Stihl and Makita type gear that the protection circuit is in the battery. Seems pretty dodgy to me to do it on the tool, as you are relying on the connections to be good to manage the battery - a dodgy or dirty connection on the sense controller circuit could allow the voltage to drop below a safe level even if only for a short time, and you can't really use the main contacts for this as high load currents could show an artificially low voltage and shut the tool off early... Also, the protection circuits are often prone to damage and destroying that writes off the tool and not just a battery. I'd like to find out which tools/brands are like this and add to the "Avoid" list!
Hi, can someone with a mini please have a look on their app and let me know the general power usage please?
I have a gen 3, live off grid with limited battery and the gen 3 is using too much power in the winter months so looking at alternatives.
Thanks
24 watts with snow melt offQuote:
Originally Posted by savage270
@striker thanks for that, looks like just under half the power draw of the gen 3
And remember the app permits you to turn it 'off' for whatever periods of the day you choose. Ours is off from 10.30pm to 6.30am. Saves 33% of your power draw for 24 hours. (we are off grid too)
Yeah that sounds about right for the mini - interestingly the Gen 3 you have looks to drag a bit more than my Gen 2. Are you sure the snow melt is off on your Gen3, as I would have expected the Gen 3 to draw less than the Gen 2???Quote:
Originally Posted by striker
