[CQ-Contest] StarLink and remote contesting?

[Jim Brown]

On 3/2/2023 11:45 AM, Mike Smith VE9AA wrote:
> Has anyone used Starlink to remote into their contest station?

Hi Mike,

I can't respond to the remote contesting part of the question, but I've 
been using Starlink for more than a year. I bought the system as backup 
for Comcast, which had a long history of lousy power backup. My QTH is a 
very challenging one for Starlink, because the 250-275 ft redwoods that 
surround be give it a rather limited view of the sky. That causes 
relatively frequent dropouts. No problem for anything that's buffered, 
like browsing, music, even high res video. NOT good with anything 
interactive like VOIP, Zoom, etc., because those apps will think you're 
gone and disconnect.

Here's a third-party app that will show you what birds are covering you. 
I don't recall how I plugged in my qth -- I wandered around meuns for a 
while. :)  I'm currently covered most of the time by 6-9 birds, but 
they're mostly fairly low vertical elevation angle, so they don't get 
through the trees. When I started out, it was more like 3-5. Down time 
now is on the order of 8-10%, roughly half what it was when I started 
with it. The difference is the many additional birds they launch. I get 
those statistics from the Starlink app running on my phone that queries 
the Starlink unit.

https://satellitemap.space/?constellation=starlink

Several neighbors, all but one of them hams, have far less obstruction, 
and are quite happy. I'm happy too, for my backup needs. (We have no 
cell coverage here, thanks to the "tin hat" brigade").

73, Jim K9YC