11/15/25 Addendum… Battery Operated Mini 

One of the coolest things about the Mini is that it has a built-in router. With a battery pack, it could easily be moved out of tree cover without hassling with a cord.

It’s tempting to imagine using it with the battery continually charging and providing pass through power (so the unit is effective plugged in and operable when inside the camper), and then being able to take the cordless unit outside whenever necessary.

11/4/25 Update 

The money-saving strategy isn’t working – yet.

Last month I changed my subscription to Pause so that I’d go down from the $165 Unlimited rate to the $5/mo Pauserate at the beginning of the next billing period. 

We’re currently camping and the change happened yesterday evening, just as we were trying to do some research on YouTube.

I’m happy to report that we could still watch YouTube videos, but the internet speed was so slow that they were reduced to horrible quality, a real jerky 240P is my guess.

The next step in the plan would have been to switch to the $50/50GB plan and try to remember to go to the unlimited plan when we reached 165GB of data usage. But, saving $3.86 per day for the first part of the month just didn’t feel very important to me and I switched back to the Unlimited plan. 

Maybe next month I’ll try again and maybe save up to $160 if we don’t travel in December. But, we probably will, and I’ll probably end up back on the Unlimited plan.

9/20/25 Update

Trying to get Starlink’s new service options figured out. 

In April, Starlink had a free dish and $120/mo residential service deal. Now the deal is $59/mo (first year) for Residential Lite plus $89 for the dish.

Since they have a “30 day trial” offer, I went ahead and signed up for this Residential Lite plan. (We already have Starlink on our motorhome, so this would be for our house.)

Can the Residential Lite plan be used with an RV? Yes, I think so, but you’d have to change the service address every time you move it. So, better for a camp host than for someone who camps in a different spot every night.

We have the $165/mo Unlimited Roam plan, and it’s great. We leave Starlink on all the time (about 50Ah per day) and it is as seamless as the internet at home.

There is also a Roam 50GB plan that costs $50 per month. That’s enough for about 20 hours of streaming TV and movies. Easy to use up on a rainy weekend! Additional data is available at the same rate of $1/GB, so this is a better deal than Roam Unlimited, but only if you can keep your average use down below 150GB per month. (I don’t want to have to keep track, so I pay the $165 and don’t worry about it.)

Both of these plans can be put on $5/mo Standby (which includes emergency messaging data), which is great for those who don’t use Starlink except when traveling. 

You can switch between Unlimited Roam, 50GB Roam, and Standby whenever you like, but the timing is important. When you go up in price (like from 50G to Unlimited, or Standby to Roam) the change happens immediately and the monthly bill is prorated. (Billing cycles are not month-to-month, they are based on your activation date.)

When you go down in price (like going from Roam to Standby) the change doesn’t happen until the start of the next billing cycle.

So, planning trips at the end of the billing-cycle month can save money because you’ll be using the expensive plan for the shortest part of the billing cycle.

And actively managing Starlink billing will determine whether you are closer to paying $60 per year or $1,980 per year. (Geez, that’s a lot of money!) 

8/26/25 Update

• Starlink replaced its free Pause function with a $5/month Standby Mode, offering slow but always-available connectivity—useful for RV travelers who want minimal service during downtime.
• You can still Cancel instead of using Standby, but reactivating later may not be guaranteed, depending on network congestion.
• If you strategically Cancel at the optimal time in your billing cycle some fees may be prorated.

Answer to a question about how to mount Starlink.

It depends on how you plan on using it. We have ours (2021 D) mounted (very simply) on the roof so that we can leave it on all the time and always have immediate access to the internet and wifi phone calls, even while driving. If we’re under trees, the cable can be pulled out and the dish can be easily moved to an open space. 

But we’ve recently learned that in many cases, the Starlink dish can be placed inside the motorhome and still get a good signal. With that in mind, if I were starting with Starlink today, I’d probably just take it out of the box and place everything in the upper bunk, start using it immediately and then take some time to decide where its permanent home should be. (Things are always changing with Starlink, so a good installation today will likely be a sub-par installation tomorrow.) 

This method, if it works, is better than a roof-top installation because it can very easily be carried outside and away from trees. Least desirable (to me) would be any type of method that requires setting the dish up and initializing the router at every stop (which means you would probably never use it when quickly stopping for lunch). 

But there is another strategy, where you carry it (maybe even in the original box) and only activate it when you need it, and then cancel immediately when it’s no longer needed. Sure, you lose the convenience of internet and phone access with no down time, but you can eliminate most of the subscription fees. I don’t mind paying to have it available 24/7/365 but we have our Navion parked in the side yard and use it regularly.

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10/16/24

Announcement this morning, Musk says that the new generation of satellites “Will Offer 10X Increase In Bandwidth And Reduced Latency.” The question is how that will affect the choice of dishes.

Currently, deciding which dish to get is based mostly on cost, signal strength, electricity consumption, and portability. There is no one single best choice – each one of the dishes represents a compromise.

For our RV’s the optimal hardware would be able to adjust electrical consumption on the fly, with a very low resting consumption that can be amped up as needed. Or, some way of combining to mini’s to get a maxi.  I probably won’t upgrade from our Gen 2 until something like this comes out. I’d love the Gen 3 but it consumes twice as much power as our Gen 2.

For those deciding whether to get Starlink or not, here’s how I see it…

Starlink should be thought of as a supplement to, and not a replacement for, a good cell plan with unlimited data.

Starlink is an expensive luxury that fills in the gaps in high-speed cellular data but doesn’t guarantee coverage in all situations. (The most obvious problem being heavy tree cover.)

1/31/24

For those trying to decide between the 2nd generation dish (rectangular, with a mast) and the new 3rd generation dish, the new dish has decidedly better signal strength, but it uses twice as much power. Whether the increased speed is usable is another question. Whether the increased power consumption is important will depend on how much power you have available when camping.

Also, the Gen 3 dish is much smaller when used as a portable dish and much easier to mount flat when installed on the camper’s roof.

I’m still happy with my Gen 2 mounting method, where I simply drilled a 1.25” hole in the roof and dropped the mast and cable into the hole. Instead of the foam cradle I used for almost two years, I now have a 3D printed cradle that looks much better.

I would like the Gen 3 dish’s superior signal strength, but we are usually running off of battery power, so I appreciate the lower power consumption of the Gen 2 dish.


Update November 11/14/23

We enjoy Starlink but it’s not for everyone. It’s great in areas with no cell service, but expensive and uselessly redundant in areas with good high-speed cell coverage. Also more and more campsites are providing free WiFi (many using Starlink) which would eliminate the need for a private Starlink dish. Using it as a secondary internet provider at home is a (little) bit of icing on the cake.

For remote workers who stay for long periods of time in places outside of cell range, it’s a no brainer. For campers who always have great cell service, it’s unnecessary.

For those who just want to watch Netflix no matter where they happen to be, whether it’s the right personal choice is more of a hassle/financial decision. And, of course, for those who just like geeking around with new technology, it’s a must-have.

Ours is the standard dish, semi-permanently mounted on the roof of our 2021 Navion D, and we have adequate battery/solar capacity to leave it turned on all the time. 

For us, Starlink is only worthwhile if it is easy to use. If we had to set up the dish and boot up the system at every campsite we probably wouldn’t be as excited about it. It’s nice to be able to have it going while driving, and be able to park for a moment and watch TV or use the internet. We couldn’t do that if Starlink had to be set up everytime.

I mounted our dish in the easiest, least expensive, and most useful way I could come up with, by simply drilling a 1.25” hole in the roof directly above the bathroom closet. The mast (with cable) drops down into the hole, with the cable and Starlink router sitting directly below the mast. The power cord is plugged into the adjacent outlet.

One of the reasons I like this mounting method is that because it was virtually free and only took a few minutes to do, I can always upgrade to new Starlink equipment without any regrets.

This method of mounting prevents the dish’s aiming motors from working. Surprisingly, some say the dish works even better when it’s forced to lie flat. If we were ever under heavy tree cover, we could easily remove the dish and manually place it in a clearing, but we’ve never had to do that yet.

The equipment costs about $650. (The new High Performance flat-mount dish costs about $2,550 for twice as many receptors, and using twice as much power.)

They keep changing the plans, prices, and service limitations, so be sure and check starlink.com for current information. And, don’t count on things staying the same. They can (and do) change frequently.

We’ve been able to use it while driving, but they keep changing the rules on that too.

Starlink is constantly changing. I wouldn’t recommend it as an investment for the future, but if the costs can be justified over the first few months, then it’s a good option.





Update July 20, 2022
The service is working well, but Starlink continues to change its terms and availability every month, so there are no assurances regarding anything beyond the upcoming month. 

Drilling a hole in the roof, and dropping the mast through, turned out to be the best installation possible. I’m still working on some of the details (like the ability to remove the dish to reposition it if necessary) but everything is working great.


Original post… 

At this point, I’m pursuing this for myself but not recommending Starlink to others. There are too many uncertainties for most users. (Such as continual changes in terms of service and, yesterday, an unexpected 10% price increase.)
If you want to learn more about how Starlink works or how to get it, a Google search will tell you all you need to know. If you can’t get it sorted out then, trust me, Starlink isn’t for you. 

Since things are changing on a daily basis, please only comment if you are already familiar with Starlink.

We currently have the Starlink dish placed on top of the Navion and have the router inside the house. 

A mobile-capable installation would eliminate equipment setup and stowing at each destination. And, better yet, we’d be able to use online navigation tools when lost on a remote fire road with no cell service.

My goal is to optimize a system that works in the camper and also efficiently feeds our home devices when we’re not traveling.
The issues I’m encountering at this point include:
• Dish aerodynamics on the moving vehicle and accommodating the motorized positioning while driving.
• Distribution of the camper’s WiFi across the house and yard.

The best solutions I can come up with so far are:
• Router and dish mounted in the camper and continuously left on.
• A periscope-style mount that lowers the dish flush to the roof and allows raising it when camping. (The mast would drop into a closet space in the camper.)
• Plugging ethernet into the Starlink adapter to connect to WiFi in the house. (Hoping for a wireless and automatic solution.)

If you want to learn more about how Starlink works or how to get it, a Google search will tell you all you need to know. If you can’t get it sorted out then, trust me, Starlink isn’t for you.

Since things are changing on a daily basis, please only post if you are already familiar with Starlink and want to discuss using it on a View.