← Field Notes Comms & Mesh No. 04

Starlink is not an accessory

It can rival your fridge in daily watt-hours.

Plenty of people bolt a dish onto a system they sized before they owned one, then wonder why they're dead by midnight.

The Mini runs roughly 30W — call it 360Wh over the same 12 hours. The standard motorized dish draws meaningfully more. That difference alone can decide your whole system size.

Skip the inverter tax. Your battery is DC. An inverter converts DC to AC, losing energy as heat. Then Starlink's power supply converts it back to DC. You paid for two conversions on a load that runs all day. Where a native DC option exists, use it — and you don't need an inverter running all night to serve one device.

Obstructions decide everything. It needs clear sky. Trees that look thin will drop your connection repeatedly. Site the dish first, then decide where you park.

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