SpaceX Starlink Roof Installation on the Colorado Plains

This is part two of the SpaceX Starlink Blogs Series. Read part one here!

My brother-in-law texted me early afternoon to say he was coming over to do the install in an hour. I couldn’t hear the wind howling, the snow was melted from the roof, and the grass was swaying in a normal breeze. Everything was a go!

Most of what is necessary for the install is included in the Volcano Roof Mount kit – including a carrying bag to safely bring the dish onto the roof! The state of drills and drill bits in my house is questionable. Where do those batteries keep wandering off to?! I suggested my brother-in-law bring his own drill, drill bits, and stud finder. There was no need to purchase silicon for the roof as the kit comes with sticky rubber to place in the drilled-out holes on the roof and set beneath the mount before the lag bolts are fastened to the roof. The only other items I needed were a socket for the lag bolts, socket wrench, and 6-inch extension. There’s no shortage of these in the shop!

I collected the Starlink dish in its carrying case, Volcano Roof Mount install kit, and the POE injector and WIFI router, and carried it outside for the install. As I was setting up and reviewing the cabling the dmark box on the side of the house, I felt the wind pick up. Uh oh. My brother-in-law hadn’t arrived yet and mid-afternoon on the plains can turn into torture with cold, biting wind. I hoped for the best and hunted for the tools I needed to clean up the cabling at the dmark box and make room for the large Starlink ethernet cable.

Upon his arrival, I showed him the layout for the cabling and how we will run it down the roof and the side of the house. We discussed the dish positioning ad nauseum while he was standing on the ground and after he climbed onto the roof. I was probably being extra paranoid about obstructions based on my first impressions of the Starlink service. The dish needed clear visibility to the northwest, north, and northeast. However, we can see the Starlink satellites flying past the house to the west at night, so I didn’t want to block that view either. Once we selected the location for the dish, then it was time to find a stud to attach the Volcano Roof Mount. I have no idea what kind of stud finder works through roofing material, but it wasn’t the one he brought. In fact, I can’t think of a time a stud finder has confidently located a stud in a wall. I’ve always just knocked. And that’s what he did on the roof. He couldn’t hear the different between hollow versus solid because of the wind howling in his ears. Acoustics are interesting. I could hear it perfectly standing on the ground. After locating the studs on the roof with our high-tech methods, it was time to mark and drill.

My brother in law torquing down the lag bolts for the Volcano Roof Mount on the very windy Colorado plains.

At this point I had been standing in the shade, enduring the increasing wind for an hour. My role was mainly moral support and safety supervisor after the drilling began. Even wearing Carhartt work gloves and shoving my hands into the pockets of my Carhartt heavy duty jacket, my fingers were feeling numb and stinging from the cold at the same time. I regretted not putting on proper winter gear. But, it is impossible to do cabling with winter gloves on. Plus, I wasn’t the one on the roof trying to use power tools with uncooperative Starlink “sealing tape” without protection from the elements. I had to tough it out!

The first test through the Starlink WIFI Router after the dish was mounted on the roof.

I was feeling concerned about his safety with the strong gusts while he was attaching the dish to the roof mount. He dropped the ethernet cable down to me and I quickly plugged it into the POE injector that was ready to go in the garage. A few minutes later I was connected to the internet and ran a speed test from my phone through the Starlink WIFI router. 130 Mbps down! Success!

Now we were working as fast as we could because the cold wind was miserable. He was attaching the cabling to the roof and down the side of the house with the Volcano Roof Mount kit cable ties. The screws for the cable ties were entirely too short, so he switched to zip ties to run it down the side of the house. In theory, zip ties were easy because he ran the Starlink ethernet cable along the existing ethernet cable from my other internet service provider. However, the zip ties in the package were brittle from their multiple outdoor projects and kept breaking when tightened. &%#(*&@#$^! I was cutting the opening of the dmark box a bit more to shove the Starlink RJ45 end into it without damaging the other cables inside. My fingers weren’t functioning, and the pain from the biting cold was almost unbearable. I had to stop a couple of times to run into the shop to run my hands under hot water to be able to use them again. Finally, the Starlink ethernet cable fit into the dmark box. I connected it to an existing Cat6 cable with an RJ45 coupler, verified none of the cables were pinched, screwed the cover back on, and sealed it with silicone. We used a few more zip ties to make sure the excess cable wasn’t flopping around, and he quickly got into his car, cranked the heat, and sped away. My sister had checked in twice, so it was clear he was expected home. I will clean up the cabling when it isn’t winter!

I put all the tools away, cleaned the silicone from my fingers as much as I could, and headed into the house feeling extremely proud of what we accomplished and very excited about heat and no wind. The first thing my partner says to me is, “What took you so long?”. I tried to explain, but it is clear from her reaction and my sister’s text and call, that this is not a partner approved Sunday afternoon project when it extends into dinner time.

Before I end this blog, I want to note that I submitted a support ticket to Starlink as soon as I thawed out. We were very deliberate every step of the way to secure the install because it has to withstand sustained 40+ mph wind weekly. The two buttons that “lock” the Starlink dish to the Volcano Roof Mount base is a weak point in the design. The other dish on my roof uses bolts and nuts to attach to the base and it has stayed in place for a year and a half. I don’t want my next blog to be about the $500 Starlink dish tumbleweed that has detached from its mount, damaged my house, and is flying across the property. Hopefully SpaceX Starlink will respond positively and can send me an updated design as soon as possible!

Read part three of this blog series for details on how I configured my Ubiquiti Unifi Secure Gateway Pro 4 to work around the connectivity issues of Starlink while maximizing user experience.