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More Starlink Info From Alaska

SomeRadioGuy

SomeRadioGuy

Not the most Alaska story ever, but close. And a Starlink update!

We're going to be deploying Starlink at another KSKO Satellitor station (KSKC 89.5 Crooked Creek, 90 watts @ -448 feet, pop. 105) after a regional native corporation donated a unit to us, with Hughesnet Gen2 going away in summer and the service getting pretty bad lately.

Last time we mailed something to the village, it got hung up at a regional post office for far too long, so I asked the native corp if they could get it on the cargo plane.

Well, what I also didn't know earlier this week is that there's an ice road between Crooked Creek and the regional hub, Aniak 50 miles away and the ice road crew was in Aniak... so they picked up the Starlink unit in Aniak and brought it back on the ice road.

We have Starlink at HQ sending out our 128K mp3 stereo web feed to modulate the satellitor stations and 1 operational Starlink at satellitor KSKP 89.5 Sleetmute, (90 watts @ -189 feet, pop 86) with one being installed at KSKP as mentioned above and another about to me installed at satellitor KMGS 89.5 Anvik (27 Watts at 187 feet, pop 74) this week.

Reports from listeners on KSKP Sleetmute say it has been fantastic since we installed Starlink there.. much much more consistent service than Viasat/Exede, Hughesnet or GCI Wireless internet.

I share updates about us and what we do because many are interested in the 49th state and how things work and what goes on up here but few ever get to be here, so I like to share the tech side of things especially because it is sometimes interesting up here!
 
I now have a Starlink at a transmitter site (I'll call this site A), installed on June 9th. It's a Starlink Gen 3, securely mounted to the roof using the standard 50' cable. Install was not bad at all, it did an update once it was connected. I ran it for a week using as little data as possible. I noticed in that week that it (The Starlink) used about .8GB of Data that went against the 40GB plan. This week 6-16 to 6-19 there have been two updates that disrupted service. They will automatically install the update around 2am the day the update is downloaded. They also give the option to Reboot/update on the management page if you check it when an update is pending. For broadcasters 2am is not a bad time to have this happen.

Primary use of the Starlink will be an STL, so running a codec and backup for the Burk and transmitter. I have another site a mile away (Site B) that has Comcast Fiber and a VPN to the Studio, it is the primary network for the Burks and transmitters at both sites. The two sites have two dry pairs running between them. One I use for audio the other has a DSL modem that lets me extend the from site B to site A. Its OK for the Burk and transmitter a little dicey with the Codec. It was too expensive to put fiber at Site A (Fiber was already installed at Site B, installation was paid for by someone else). So the Starlink was installed at Site A.

Onto the Codec and such. Using an IP200 which works well. Using the management port for control/configuration and is on the VPN network extended from B, this way I have a fixed IP on the station network to manage the IP200. WAN 1 is using the Starlink, it does not have a public IP. The primary IP200 settings are Opus Stereo, 48Kb/s, Dynamic initiator (it's connecting to the public IP of the Codec at the studio). The starlink reports 197Kpbs downlink. The IP200 has pretty good error logging and so far has not reported alot of problems other than the Firmware r Reboots. The IP200 has been running full time since 12pm, 6/18/24. Once I get a few more days logging I'll be able to see if there were any drop outs. In a 24hr Codec test there were four 10 second drops really close together around the 9pm hour.
 
xmtrland said:
I now have a Starlink at a transmitter site (I'll call this site A), installed on June 9th. It's a Starlink Gen 3, securely mounted to the roof using the standard 50' cable. Install was not bad at all, it did an update once it was connected.
Click to expand...
Are you running the Starlink commercial account with so many private IP's included or DHCP?
 
DHCP, the plan says Priority 40 and does not include a public IP. But it gives the option to add one. Cost is $140 a month. Interesting that when I re boot the system I get a few drop outs during the first 24 hours, about 5 seconds according to the log on the IP200. After that no drop out in the last 48 hours.

The IP200 is using Dynamic initiator (transmitter unit connects to studio unit that has a public IP).

Just a side note I got Viasat as a backup ISP over 7 years ago so I still could use my Vonage phone and get basic email and such. Cost of the Viasat is $69 a month and is fine for what I use it for. I did this when I was publishing a small community Newspaper and wanted to be able to email the finished paper to the printer when Comcast would occasionally go down.

Overall the Starlink is cheaper than a T1 or dedicated old style equalized 8KC phone line which we still have but are just waiting for the service to be discontinued. I'm lucky that the company I work for has the resources to explore alternate means of delivery to the transmitter. So far, Comcast fiber and Starlink look to be a good mix for main and backup. Also lucky I have those two dry pairs to ship audio or DSL type connectivity between sites that are less than a mile apart. Eventually I'm going to add a Ubiquiti wireless Link between the site as another level of connectivity between the sites. So much fun stuff to play with when I'm on the "Island" versus having to go to the big city to deal with the studios.
 
xmtrland said:
Eventually I'm going to add a Ubiquiti wireless Link between the site as another level of connectivity between the sites. So much fun stuff to play with when I'm on the "Island" versus having to go to the big city to deal with the studios.
Click to expand...
Those Ubiquity AirFiber 5G links are great. Where I used to work we had HD beauty cameras aimed at the White House, Capital, and other sites around Washington, D.C. The return was either expensive business Internet connections or 2Ghz microwave with DSL control. Over the past year or so we replaced the HD cameras with 4K sent back and controlled via Ubquity AirFiber MESH links. As long as you have good line of sight, you'll get five miles or more of distance. I think the lowest link speed we ever saw in a snow was 64mbps both ways.
 
Just an update had 2 days with no drop outs on the IP200 log. Today starting at 1:44am until 9:51am had nine, 5 second drop outs.
 
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