Nearly all of the Starlink installs I’ve seen appear to be customer self-installs. That leaves a huge potential customer base who want it installed, and I assume that’s why SpaceX started offering the free or cheap install service, to tap into that demographic.
Most people want everything done for them these days. They don’t shop for groceries or cook dinner, somebody delivers it. They don’t turn wrenches or drill holes to install satellite dishes. How did our ancestors survive having to get up from the sofa to change the TV channel? Then there are the “nothing on my house” people. Not on the wall or roof or fascia, no holes for cables. Those people won’t even be able to get fiber, I assume they are the target demographic for “5G Home Internet”. From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of David Hannum via AF Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2026 2:50 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> Cc: David Hannum <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Starlink question It's amazing the number of starlinks I've seen just laying in peoples yards, sitting on the trunk deck of their car, laying on their roof . . . On Wed, Apr 22, 2026 at 3:46 PM Steve Jones <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: this is probably why starlink is providing free professional installations now, they dont want people who dont know the product out there causing headaches. cheaper to pay for a professional install then risk a marketing hit, plus it locks non pro install member wisps out of the last revenue bump before conversion On Fri, Apr 17, 2026 at 7:49 AM Jan-GAMs <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: That might be a business to get into. I just put one up and it was a serious PITA. #1 The antenna shipped was designed for sitting on a flat surface, not mounting to, sitting on. #2 the dufus AI in charge of answering questions, directed me into ordering all the wrong mounting hardware and all the wrong mounting instructions. #3 You will really want to kill something before the day gets older. Once you learn StarLink likes to lie to you and you been through the injuries before the install job gets easy. Log into the antenna controller/router setup and choose "bypass" mode to turn off the wifi and make the StarLink behave more like a modem and get along with an existing network. StarLink does not play-well with other brands of WiFi devices. The new StarLink antenna has a folding leg for a stand that clips on. When ordering the antenna kit, the original antenna is what is shown in the order, it's a complete mis-direction and is incompatible with a StarLink short-wall-mount kit $50. If you want to mount the new antenna to a vertical surface, the wall mount kit doesn't have all the pieces needed to mount in the kit but are shown in the directions as being in the box. Solution: Use a Ubiquiti J-mount, $7?. Order the Pipe mount adapter for the new StarLink antenna, it clips on where the legs do. The pipe adapter is made for upto a 2.5" pipe and employs a crushing bolt to grip onto a pipe. This will crush a normal pipe and then your StarLink will follow gravity towards a nasty end with only a short LAN cable to break the fall. I bolted a solid Aluminum rod into the j-mount so now the j-mount won't crush and tightened the cinching bolt to that. The metal fab shop had some rod $10 that was a perfect fit into the J-mount. Monthly StarLink service fee for 100MB feed is $50/mo. Spectrum raised their fee to $90/mo, I returned their modem and told them to pound sand. If I change my mind and quit StarLink, I owe them 1 year's worth of service fees minus what has been paid so far. On 4/10/26 09:40, Ken Hohhof wrote: If someone gets Starlink with installation (0, $49 or $99) and subsequently switches to fiber when it becomes available. Would I be correct to assume they will have to take it down themselves or pay someone, and then pay to ship the dish and router back? That seems obvious to me, but lots of things seem obvious to me but not to others. -- AF mailing list [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
-- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
