I thought patch antennas couldn’t be cheap FR4 and had to be some expensive PTFE/fiberglass substrate or something. Maybe that depends on frequency.
From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Chuck McCown via AF Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 2:09 PM To: Darin Steffl <darin.ste...@mnwifi.com>; AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com> Cc: ch...@go-mtc.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] YouTuber dismantles the SpaceX Starlink 'Dishy McFlatface' Antenna! [V The antenna is an array of circular patches with a parasitic patch for a bit more gain. The whole array is not one huge phased array but a cluster of smaller groups of patches. I can have that antenna PCB made for probably $20. It is just a normal pcb. All the chips that have made it possible for you to have a phased array on the front bumper of your car can easily make this happen. Phase shifting RF in a chip is no longer difficult nor expensive. There are a bunch of them though, so just the sheer number of chips will make it more expensive but it is surly to be custom silicon. From: Darin Steffl Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 12:27 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Cc: Chuck McCown Subject: Re: [AFMUG] YouTuber dismantles the SpaceX Starlink 'Dishy McFlatface' Antenna! [V Most guesses are upwards of $2,500 to manufacturer. Phased array antennas are very expensive and before they put a lot of effort into reducing cost, most said minimum $10k for this type of antenna. On Sun, Nov 29, 2020, 12:36 PM Chuck McCown via AF <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > wrote: That antenna array alone is probably costing them $20 and another $20 of chips on it. I am guessing it is north of $100 to make. From: Ken Hohhof Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 11:28 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] YouTuber dismantles the SpaceX Starlink 'Dishy McFlatface' Antenna! [V What do you estimate it would cost them to manufacture in large quantities? People are probably assuming it’s a $10 item at some point, but it looks expensive to me, even at scale. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Chuck McCown via AF Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 11:49 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Cc: ch...@go-mtc.com <mailto:ch...@go-mtc.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] YouTuber dismantles the SpaceX Starlink 'Dishy McFlatface' Antenna! [V Clever motor assembly. Be fun to use that same mechanism for a solar panel. I may have to give that a try. So, it does steer mechanically. Almost has to to maximize the gain. Looks like roughly 2000 patches. Looks like roughly 500 chips feeding them. So a 4 patch array fed by a T/R-LNA - power amp. 4-6 of those clusters fed into a larger chip that probably does the phasing for steering. So the antenna is just a whole lot of simple in a very massive scale. From: Jaime Solorza Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 8:24 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: [AFMUG] YouTuber dismantles the SpaceX Starlink 'Dishy McFlatface' Antenna! [V https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/starlink-teardown _____ -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com _____ -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
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