StarBand

© Brooke Clarke 2007 - 2010
 
New Nova Starband antenna above now obsolete better 360 antenna.
OE-254 antenna in background

1 Sep 2010

Canceled service - moved to "Basic DSL".  Although the DSL download speed is 600 k bits/sec compared to the Starbnad "1500 service" speed that peaks at 2,400 k bits/sec and sustains 1,500 bits/sec the DSL ping time of 100 ms is much faster than the Starband (or any satellite based service) ping time of 800+ ms.

20 Aug 2010

at&t finally got the DSL to work.  The problem seems to have been a truck connection between the DSL box and the crossover box at the foot of my street.  608 k bits/sec is about half the speed of the Starband 1500 service.  at&t is $15/month, Starband 1500 is $100/month.
at7t ping time is about 100 ms compared to Starband 800+ ms.

Web pages load noticably faster.

25 June 2010

Swapped the dish, arm and feed horns of the old (bottom unit in photo above) and new (on roof in photo above).
Prior to the swap the Rx signal was 6.9 and after the swap it was 8.9!  This was done by removing the arms from both dishes and swapping the Tx and Rx units (leaving the feed on the arms then removing the dishs from the mounts and swapping them.

The Nova dish has a longer arm (31.5") than the older better 360 dish arm (19.5").

Starband Nova Antenna Arm (temperature sensitive)
Starband 360 Antenna (25 June 2010) replaces Nova Antenna

16 June 2010

By using a green laser pointer aligned with the support arm I could see that there were tree tops in the beam (assuming that the beam points along the line of the support arm, anyway that's what Starband told me.  After using the laser pointer to identify the tree that was the most in the beam and cutting it down, the next day the laser pointer showed another tree also in the beam.  On 18 June there are not trees in the beam, but are just below it.  The Rx signal EbN0 is in the sixes.  It's hard to tell if this was the cold problem until next winter.

22 May 2010

48.7 deg F outside and s/n 5.51 i.e. system on the ragged edge of working.

12 May 2010

I received an email from Eric who told me of the problem of warped dishes (he has the reinforced plastic dish like mine, not a metal FTA type dish).  As the temperature gets colder they can distort lowering the signal strength.  Now to come up with a way to test for this.  This makes more sense since it's hard cold would effect other problems like water, i.e. water is a disaster when liquid and the temperature may not be cold enough to freeze it.

28 April 2010

This has been the wettest winter in about a decade and StarBand does not work in the rain (either at the base station in Georgia, or my location in N. California).  So ofter, like right now, I'm using a dial up modem to connect to the internet.  Still have not taken apart the microwave parts to clean, dry and reassemble them using Silicon grease to make sure all the joints are water vapor tight.  That needs to be done when it's dry outside.

24 March 2010

 Inside a Gilat (Starband) LNB

The input is at the upper left, followed by three stages of amplification that includes some band pass filtering.
The white disk in the lower left is the dielectric for the local oscillator which is tuned by the metal screw in the lid.
After the three stages of amplification there's a band pass filter and following the LO there's also a filter. The IF output is fed to the type F connector on the right which is also the 24 VDC input.  There's no heater.

14 March 2010

http://www.broadband.gov FCC broadband internet access on line test.
My test resutls with the 1500 service (best of the Starband offerings)

Test	Result
Download Speed	1538 k bits/sec
Upload Speed	105 k bits/sec
Latency	293 ms *
Jitter	345 ms *

* this is the problem that really slows things down and makes VOIP impossible.

13 March 2010

Most of this morning with a clear sky, it was near freezing outside and the Rx signal EbN0 was about 3.47 around noon, i.e. no internet connection.  So, swapped the LNB from the old (wall) system and the active (roof) system.  The system works after the LNB swap.

Time	Rx signal EbN0	deg F
13:07	7.64
13:28	6.77
14:02	6.68
15:40	7.02
16:00	6.64
18:00	6.48
18:25	6.38
19:00	6.45
21:00	6.25	38.5
22:00	6.37	37.8
05:37	5.55	33.6
06:38	5.65	33.1
07:30	5.55	33.3
08:00	5.64	34.0
09:00	6.12	37.0
10:00	6.60	39.9
11:00	7.76	45.3
12:00	7.93	68.0
13:00	7.91	68.4
14:00	7.50	59.3
15:00	6.83	66.7
16:40	7.20	64.4
17:35	7.02	58.6
18:00	6.56	56.7
20:00	6.31	48.6
23:00	6.31	42.3
07:14	6.04	36.9
12:14	8.06	70.2

It looks like a heater would greatly improve the signal strength.  Starband does not know about a heater or radome, but suggested that there may be some small item trapped in the waveguide plumbing.

12 Mar 2010

The problem may relate to a degrading LNB.  Here are some Rx signal EbN0 readings from SkyManage:

Time	Rx signal EbN0
06:30	6.44
07:00	6.50
07:40	6.88
08:00	7.00
09:23	7.02
09:51	7.90
10:30	8.21
11:00	8.32
12:19	8.04
15:30	7.20
16:30	7.28
23:04	6.91
07:22	5.42

As the outside temperature gets colder the LNB seems to be degrading.  Note the pointing is good (i.e. signal is 8.32 at 11 am).

10 March 2010

Frost on roof and ice in gutters.  System off since 3 am.  Back on at 8:30 am not shure why.  Drying feed with towel did not fix it.  Heating with hair dryer did not fix it.  Strange.  After an hour or so the signal came up and the system started to work again.

20 Feb 2010

Repointed to new sat. But problems with browser not showing all of page.  Fixed early March by Starband changing a setting.
Sky Manage /Status shows HTTP Acceleration as OFF.

Jan 27 2010 -

 Need to get the antenna repointed to a new satellite prior to 1 March 2010

Sat Finder - device to aid in pointing dish.  Designed for 13 - 18 VDC using a 10 volt Zener diode and pass SOT-23 transistor, but should work OK with the 24 VDC Starband Ku band receiver.

16 Dec 2009

I've received two letters via USPS about getting my antenna repointed to a different satellite before 1 Feb 2010, but so far have not been scheduled.

Got this error message today:

Access Denied (license_expired)

A license has expired on the Proxy, and your request is not permitted: "The SGOS license has expired"

A new license must be obtained.

For assistance, contact your network support team.

Cycling power on the Sky Edge modem fixes the problem.

There are faster satellite services offered by the parent company of Starband, called Spacenet.
There are two broad classes: a dedicated channel all to yourself called thier "Performance" series, very expensive.  The "Broadband" series is a shared channel and is considerable lower in cost, but still many time more expensive than the top of the line Starband 1500 service.  They claim download speeds in the 1024 or 2048 k BYTES/sec range.  The Starband 1500 service is 150 k BYTES/sec (i.e. 1500 bits/sec).

17 Oct 2008

This problem has been with the Nova for almost a year that I know of, see:
Red Xs on Page below.

Network Error (dns_server_failure)

Your request could not be processed because an error occurred contacting the DNS server.

The DNS server may be temporarily unavailable, or there could be a network problem.

For assistance, contact your network support team.

This error seems to be caused by a memory leak in the Nova operating system.  The fix is to power down (unplug the power supply from the box) for about 10 seconds then reboot.  Note this can be done without doing anything to the PC, unlike the 360 that required software istalled on the PC.  So after the Nova reboots you can just refresh the browser windows showing the Network Error (dns_server_failure) and they will then load properly.

20 March 2008

The error message when trying to get to a web page is something like "Server is Refusing Connection".   In this case the "server" is the Starband modem since it has been set as the proxy.  See the 14 March 2008 info on how that was done.  This seems a confirmation that the Nova box has a memory leak since unplugging it for 10 seconds fixes the problem.

3 Apr 2008 - In addition to the Network settings below you need to add exceptions to access the router and to access SkyManage so their address' as 4 octal digits need to be added.

14 March 2008 Red Box instead of Photograph Problem aka Setting Proxy Server in Browser

As long as I've had the Nova this problem has occurred.  The fix has been to unplug the power to the Nova for 10 seconds and then it's good for some number of days, sooner with heavier usage.  Today Mario at Starband support suggested:
1) Run - cmd <OK>
in DOS window enter ipconfig
write down the default gateway address  

2) Windows - Tools - Internet Options - Connections - Lan Settings -
check the third box down "Use a proxy server for your LAN (These settings will not apply to dial-up or VPN connections).
Advanced -
Enter the gateway address into the HTTP: box and the Port box should be 9877 (default)
copy the above into the Secure: boxes
OK all the way out and close Windows.
Reopen Windows and check to see that the above settings are still there.

Only time will tell.

7 March 2008 Solar Outage

The signal gets weaker for more than 10 minutes either side of the most severe outage.

Photo taken during 7 Mar 2008 solar outage. Notice that the old antenna (bottom one) has a couple of inches of shadow at the top edge.  Since the feed is located below the antenna the actual beam to the satellite is higher, so the old antenna was seeing a lot of the metal rain gutter. The upper antenna is totally in the clear.

6 Mar 2008 Solar Outage

Cloudy so ceiling sun dial not working.  Tried and failed to send email.  Then noticed the time was 12:51 and checking the signal strength showed none.  Within a couple of minutes it was back.
I has hoping that the Nova antenna now on top of the roof (see photo above) would work much better than the old antenna that was aimed at the metal rain gutter, but for Solar outages they are about the same.  Taking a photo of the two dishes would be interesting is done at the center of an outage.  The suns shadow on a dish would mean a lot of signal blockage, but no shadow would not mean a clear view because of the offset type feed.

5 March 2008 Solar Outage

4 March 2008 Solar Outage

My celing sundial mark for the 360 system is showing an outage now and the Nova has no signal.
Based on the outage area 12:50 am is about the center of today's outage.

Time	Signal
12:49	0
12:54	7
12:55	7.5
12:56:00	7.64
12:57:00	7.76
1:00:00	7.76

18 Feb 2008 - Upgraded to the highest level service

For a number of years Starband has not been taking new orders for the older 180, 360 and 400 series modems.  The new modem called the Nova has replaced them.
The Nova can run at different speeds controlled by what firmware is loaded.  The "Pro" entry level service I started with provides a download speed that's controlled to be about 500 k bits/sec or 50 kBytes/sec.  The upgrade speeds are 100 kBytes/sec and 150 kBytes/sec.  Along with the faster download speed comes faster upload speeds and a higher bandwidth allocation.  My "Pro" allocation was 1 GByte/7 days and that's now 4 GB/7 days.  The one thing that does not improve is the ping time which is limited by physics and the speed of light.  So altough web page load times are noticably faster they still are not whay you see on a DSL, or Cable Modem connection.

Red Xs on Page

When viewing a web page, like an eBay auction page, I was seeing a number of red X marks where an image should be, like in the photos section.  I think this is caused by a bug in the Nova software that's related to memory allocation.  The fix is to power down the Nova for 15 seconds, you can leave your computer and browser windows open, and then let it reboot.  This zeros the RAM in the Nova and for me fixed the problem. 28 Oct 2007 - need to see when this is needed again.

30 Oct 2007 - an eBay acution with 12 photos showed 8 X instead.  Pressing the browser refresh button did not help.  After power cycling the Nova and prseeing refresh all photos were visible.

Router

Starband Nova and Linksys WRT350 Router

In order to share the service I've added a Linksys WRT350N Router and a WUSB300N which is a USB device for the upstairs computer.  The router includes a 4 port hub so you can use CAT5 (or better CAT6) to wire up local computers.  The installation software that comes with the router handles all of the configuration.  It's very close to plug and play.

Note 1:
The cable between the Starband Nova and your computer is a crossover cable (that way you don't need a hub when connecting the Nova directly to a computer).  So the crossover cable needs to always be connected to the Nova and when a router is used the crossover cable goes between the Nova and router.  Then a standard CAT6 cable connects the router and your computer.

Note 2:
After awhile the performance seemed to degrade.  Starband recomended periodic resetting of the router using the following procedure:

• power off the PC, router and modem. (PS. CAT6 cables are not designed for hot plugging so it's best to power down equipment before changing them).
  
• power on the modem and wait for 4 solid on LEDs
• power on the router\
• power on the computer

This fixed the problem.

Note 3:
If you have just a Nova connected to your PC you can reset the Nova by just powering it off (leave the computer on and leave your browser open), wait 15 seconds then power the Nova back on.  If there's a software update this will allow force it to load, but more important it cleans up the memory and DNS routing table in the Nova.

They have fixed the usage graph.

General Information

For quite a number of years there have been VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminals) used for business purposes.  For example the credit card readers at gas stations are connected to the credit verification center using VSATS. Gilat has been in this business for some time.  The indoor box used for the StarBand 180 is the same unit used for the Skystar and Video Overlay units.  It has three slots for the addition of custom features.  The StarBand has the left slot for the USB interface.  In a normal StarBand install a plate is installed that covers the DIP switches and the LAN port.

Recently Gilat joined up with Dish Network, Radio Shack and Microsoft to offer a home internet connection service called StarBand using similar (if not the same) technology as used for business VSAT applications.

Gilat holds many patents on sattelite related technology. The oldest is:

5053782 Commercial satellite communications system, Amiram Levinberg, Uzi Ram (Gilat Communication Systems Ltd.), Dec 13, 1989, 342/352 ; 342/132; 455/13.2

This system was designed for credit card verification like at gas stations were a VSAT antenna is on the roof of the station.  It assignes each user a time slot.
This is NOT an optimum system for general internet use.  For more on the implications of the long ping times associated with satellite operation see
Military Messaging over HF Radio and Satellite using STANAG 4406 Annex E and other white papers on the isode site.

W eather

The Starband Uplink is in the South East U.S. and they get severe weather that shuts down the system.  This is deceptive because here in California is a nice sunny day.  Too bad they located the uplind in such a poor weather location.

If you're shopping satellite systems, one of the questions to ask is how many hours of system down time is caused by bad weather?

WARNING

This may not really be the case, I don't know.

If you are working on your system and your browser is not configured with a proxy enabled, your computer is naked on the internet.  Anyone who knows how can access your hard drive and send you a virus.  I think that's how my C: drive became erased.  You may need to install a "firewall" package to protect your computer.

Configurations

• Radio Shack sells a computer with two PCI cards, one for receive and one for transmit
• StarBand sells the Model 180 desktop unit that has two coax connections (one for receive and one for transmit) and connects to the computer with USB
• StarBand may offer in the future the two PCI cards for installation in a computer
• Dish Network will be offering a system with a second LNB mounted to the StarBand dish, this saves having two dishes but really is not otherwise integrated.
• On their FAQ/homenetworking web page StarBand describes how to connect either the Radio Shack or Model 180 systems to a local LAN, but does not tell how to use the LAN connection on the model 180.
• All of these systems use the same 2' by 3' outdoor dish. (trivia test, how many antennas are in the photo? ans. bottom of page)

Problems

I have only had the system for a week and have called tech support (800 478-2722 #4) almost daily, and they keep saying that they are aware of the problem and working it.  I don't know if the system worked before I signed up, or if it never worked.

When trying to use FTP to move jpeg files from my computer to my ISP, StarBand is impossible.  There are many short data packets and the turnaround time is so long that the FTP program fails to work.  In order to get the jpeg image loaded using FTP I needed to disconnect the StarBand USB cable and use my dial up modem.  It took less that 10 seconds to make the FTP connection plus the file up load time of another 10 seconds, whereas the StarBand timed out after a minute or two.  I have heard that cable modem and xDSL also suffer when trying to use FTP.

Mid Dec. 2000 - Box arrived but Starband scheduled and rescheduled the install.

16 Jan. - Once I was able to upload a photo using FTP, but other times I could not.
I thought that I was uploading web pages and got a "successful upload" message, but when I tried to view them, the bottoms were cut off.
I have disconnected the StarBand, and will try again some time.  My phone line modem is much faster for all but very large file downloads.

18 Jan. - They have fixed the Model 180 dropout problem, caused by my NIC being set for auto detect. The fix is to set a fixed IP address of 192.168.0.1 with a sub mask of 255.255.255.0. I am getting download speeds around 577 KB, but the latency is so long that I have disconnected the Model 180 and use my phone line.

26 Feb. - I started to use the system about a week ago.  I was getting about 300 K bits/sec (30 K Bytes/sec) downloads and was able to send and receive email.  On a few occasions I could use FTP, but not always.  Today the system crashed.  It came up after about 15 minutes, tech support did not the system was down until I told them.

This defiantly should not by your only link to the internet.  It needs to be redone so that it can work in parallel with with a wired connection.

28 Feb. I was not able to upload *.TIF graphics files, when trying to view them there would be a message like bad data in line 38.  1 of 6 files would upload.
Using the phone line to do the upload was faster and worked 100% on the first try.

1 March - after clicking on a link there was no response, I waited 120 seconds, but still no response, the poor latency problem is as bad as ever!

28 April 2001 - FTP has not worked for some time. Have added Norton Personal Firewall and Norton Antivirus 2001.  They work as part of my hard drive backup system that uses Norton Ghost and a removable D: hard drive. Currently I do not use 127.0.0.1, i.e. I have IP Agent turned off.  To use the phone connection I just double click my dialer, very simple to do.

Note that  START\settings\control panel\Internet Options opens the "Internet Properties" dialog box that you can also access through IE.
These settings are global on your computer, not just for IE.

3 Jan 2002 - received the 360 upgrade package and sent back the 180. after 4 hours with SB tech support thought that it was working.
4 Jan 2002 - after leaving the system on all night, it was not working in the morning - after 13 hours with SB tech support it was not working!

• The first problem was that my computer would see the new 360 as a model 180 and so did not connect to the 360.
• The second problem was that the monitor would turn off (crash) and the only way to bring it back was to reboot.

The 180 uninstall manual on page 8 says Mission Control 2.00.1 patch can be left on your system, but tech support insists it MUST be removed, who is correct?  I was told things like "you must use IPA with the 360 it's different from the 180" and "the supplied USB cable is different from a standard USB cable" , are total Bull****! This just confirms the incompetence of the starband tech support system (including a number of "escalation" level support people).  When the first level support tech gives you wrong information or has you do wrong things, like accepting an older version rather then keeping the newer version of some software that is already on your system it is almost impossible to recover.  I ended up reinstalling WIN98, WIN98SE upgrade, my printer drivers, and there will be more to install as I need it. (IOmega ZIP drive, HP scanner, exter serial ports, etc that were removed because they may have been conflicting.  The things that are conflicting are the three programs listed above.

The monitor crash problem seems to go away when WgWLocalManager is turned off in START\msconfig\startup, but this slows the download speed from 988 KB/s to 50 KB/s based on http://www.pcpitstop.com download tests.

NEW INFORMATION

A friend that reads the starband forum told me that the 360 USB driver has a lot of incompatabilities and to use the LAN port instead.

The procedure that worked was:

• Uninstall the SB 360 software
• Install the LAN card (removed it yesterday) - confirm it's OK in my computer\properties\device manager
• reinstall the SB 360 software
• in mission control/tools - configure modem
• In Nortan Peresonal Firewall/options/advanced options\firewall "default block portal of doom trojan" disable 9874 and 9875.
• When configuring Norton Firewall rules do not use all ports, but instead check the single port shown.

The system is now working! 1:15 pm

4 Oct. 2003 - system working very poorly and each day gets noticeably worse.  Download speed at PC Pit Stop was about 200 kB.
7 Oct. 2003 - Installed a new LNB.  The old one was marked:

Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd.
Low Noise Block Down COnverter
p/n LN139100
Model NJR2544HWN
N.F. 0.5 dB
s/n 0Y1005966
This amplifier was installed with the notch filter that was removed when the new LNB is installed.  The replacement amp is marked:
p/n LN139100
Model NJR2544HWN
N.F. 0.7 dB (0.2 higher noise figure than the original)
s/n 152022733

Showing the Before case with the Notch Filter installed.

Download speed was 452 kB after replacing the LNB and removing the Notch Filter.

This shows the new LNB installed without the Notch Filter and the signal reflection angles.
You can see that the metal rain gutter is blocking the upper part of the dish.  This may no only degrade the signal because of the area blocked, but might also degrade more because of reflections canceling signals.  The white material wrapped around the gutter is microwave absorber that stops reflections.  Need to relocate the dish.

The dish is feed off axis.  The feed horn is 45 degrees below a line from the center of the dish to the satellite.  So the dish points 22.5 degrees lower than the signal path.  In my case the dish points in such a way that it clears the rain gutter, BUT the signal is 22.5 degrees higher and so is partially blocked by the metal rain gutter.

Sun Outages

All geostationary satellites are located over the equator and so twice a year, in the Fall as the Sun crosses the equatorial plane and again in the Spring there will be a time when the Sun is exactly behind the satellite and the microwave noise from the Sun will overpower the feeble signal from the satellite shutting down service.  How long this lasts depends on the beam width of the dish which in turn depends on the frequency and the dish size.

Starband uses satellites at 101, 125 and 129 degrees Longitude.  On 7 Oct. 2003 my StarBand service was blacked out about an hour and a half after I installed the new LNB.  It was about 1:30 PDT when I noticed the Mission Control icon was black. 

Using the calculator at Learfield Engineering and my location.  Used Ku and 1 meter dissh diameter.
If I'm on the 129 deg W satellite the outage would be from 1:18 to 1:35 pm
If I'm on the 125 deg W satellite the outage would be from 12:59 to 1:17 pm
So I looks like I'm on the 129 degree bird.

Workarounds

LAN Settings & IPA

When the StarBand "Mission Control" software (Version 2.00) is installed on your computer is also installs an Internet Page Accelerator in the
C:\Program Files\Spacenet\Internet Page Accelerator folder.  In order for this program to help you need to point IE (or Netscape) to it:

Setups

IE Setup

Tools\Internet Options\Connections\LAN Settings
-> Check Use a proxy server and Bypass proxy server for local address
\Advanced
-> clear all the Proxy address to use boxes, in the HTTP: box write  127.0.0.1 and the Port should be 9877
I think that Use the same proxy server for all protocols should be checked.

Netscape Setup

Edit\Preferences\Advanced\Proxies\
-> Check Manual Proxy configuration
\View
set the address to 127.0.0.1 and Port to 9877 in all the boxes.
27 Feb 2001 - Got an "internal error" separate window when trying to upload from Netscape Composer.
The fix (supplied by Starband tech support) is to go into Netscape:
Edit\preferences\advanced\proxies\view\
make blank the Address and Port for FTP.  This fixed the problem.

IE Version

It turns out that the version of IE that gets loaded with Mission Control messes up my computer.  In order to continue to work without Starband I needed to uninstall IE (which brought me back to the prior version (and lost all favorites added) of IE).

Disabling Starband

If you go to START - Run - msconfig -  OK
select the startup tab at the top
unselect the boxes for: IPA and TaskBarSvr
reboot your computer

Unfortunately this is something that I can do in autopilot mode.
Note:  If you are not running IPA then you will need to go back to automatic proxy settings and not use IPA.

There are two programs that do not seem to do anything useful, they are:
C:\program files\StarBand\Mission Control\SatStatusServer.exe and TaskBarSvr.exe.
You can kill these using <CTRL><ALT><DEL> and highlight them and select End Task.
The Browser seems to work fine without them.  I have seen the system working with the icon black and the icon green and the system down.
This makes it easy to change from phone to Satellite, by changing the proxy assignment.

IP Configuration

You can Start\Run
-> enter the program name WINIPCFG
This will bring up the IP Configuration window,
Select the Gilat communication device then,
it will tell you your IP address (and in my case the default gateway (Model 180) is just lower by 1 in the last place)
You can try "Release" to break the connection and then "Renew" to re-establish the connection.

Using the LAN port

How to remove the USB card so as to enable the LAN port.
The Mod describing how to connect a router to the 180 LAN port to serve a number of computers.
Note the router protects your computer from hackers.  If you do not use a router and connect your computer directly to the LAN port on the 180 you must run firewall software on the PC.

FTP

When using the 180 for FTP be sure the Address and Port proxy fields blank.  The AS_Agent does a good job of speeding up your browser by omiting the link to determine the DNS of your target, letting the computer at StarBand headquarters do this.  You do not want to do this when using FTP.

28 July 2001 - Today is the first time that I was able to uplink using File Transfer Protocol.  I used WS-FTP LE (freeware) made by Ipswitch.

Ping

Ping is when you sent a small packet to some IP address and they send it back to you.  The round trip time is measured.  Search on "PING" and you will find many web sites that will ping you, East Coast, West Coast, Europe, etc.  The theoretical ping time up to and down from a satellite is about 1/2 second.  I am getting 0.8 to 1.8 seconds.  But there must be something else wrong because sometimes I wait miutes for a page to load.

dslreports

This web site has "Tweak" and I added the DefaultRcvWindow registry entry at 65535 and tried to turn on MTU using DrTCP, but it did not seem to make a lot of difference.

Implications of Uplink

Because there is a transmitter involved in the uplink the dish setup needs to be much more accurate than for a normal Satellite TV receive only system.  In particular the rotation (polarization) of the transmitter feed is very critical so as to not be transmitting in the opposite polarization "cross pol".  This also means that a qualified installer must set up the system.  It also means that you will not see these systems on platforms that can move for some time to come.

Links

alt.satellite.starband - This is a MUST READ newsgroup

StarBand Users - all kinds of tips for users -to use the Forum requires a paid registration

Satellite Reports! - News about a number of different Satellite based Internet links

After reading these pages there are inconsistencies:

• If the Mission Control software does nothing, then why should 180 users upgrade.

On the StarBand web page they requested that all 180 users leave their boxes powered up for a week in Feb. 2001 so that StarBand could download new firmware into the 180 boxes.  I think this is where the improvement comes from, not the Mission Control Software.

Starband Software - 1.06 installers CD

Effective January 1, 1999, GE Spacenet merged with Gilat Satellite Networks Limited (Gilat), and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Gilat. The new company name will be Spacenet Services, Inc.  Please visit Spacenet's new web site at www.spacenet.com and update your browser's bookmarks to navigate to the new web site. (11 March 2001, I get server error and can not connect to them)
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Trivia test . . .  4,  2 each Starband + 1 each OE-254 and 1 each AS-1405 or maybe the Eggbeater in the new photo